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UNI M ED STATES OF AMERICA.} 



LIFE AND DEEDS 



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BY 



REV. HEEMANN FICK 



Translated from the German 
By REV, PROF. M. LOY. 



COLUMBUS, 0. 
J. A. Schulzb, Publisher. 

1869. 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1803, 

By J. A. SCHULZE, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States 
for the Southern District of Ohio. 



PREFACE, 



In these times it is becoming more and more 
a necessity for Ev. Lutherans to make them- 
selves acquainted with the history of Luther's 
life. The Papists assail him with constantly 
increasing vehemence, and impute to him the 
grossest sins. Even some who call themselves 
Protestants make the gravest charges against 
him. Formerly the whole Ev. Lutheran 
Church was unanimous in the conviction, that 
Luther was the divinely commissioned Reform- 
er of the Church and the herald of divine 
truth. But now the number of those is on 
the increase, even in the Ev. Lutheran Church, 
who deny him this honor. They maintain, of 
course without the least proof, that he erred in 
various articles of faith, and do not hesitate to 
dispute his vocation as a Eeformer. How eas- 
ily, under such circumstances, may not even 
faithful Lutherans be led to waver in their 
faith, especially when great scholars and dis- 



IV 

tinguislied theologians utter such censures. 
To defend ourselves successfully against these 
false accusations we have no better means than 
that of a more intimate acquaintance with his 
writings and his life. 

We hope, therefore, to meet a general want 
of our Church in this small volume. May 
God graciously own it as a means to lead us 
the more joyfully to thank Him for what we 
possess in Luther. When we contemplate his 
history, the wonderful ways in which he was 
led, and the glorious success of his work, we 
see most clearly that he was called by God 
himself to be the deliverer and restorer of His 
Church, and that as such he was divinely au- 
thenticated and sealed. When we examine 
his doctrine we find that it harmonizes per- 
fectly with the Holy Scriptures, so that he 
preached nothing but the pure word of God. 
When we view his gifts we must confess that, 
since the times of the apostles, no one pos- 
sessed such a full measure of the Spirit, of 
wisdom, and of the knowledge of the Lord, as 
Luther. When we look, finally, upon his life 
we find a shining example of Christian virtues. 
All this furnishes abundant evidence that Lu- 
ther had a divine call to reform the Church. 



But there is another motive for the earnest 
contemplation of Luther's life. For our times 
Luther is a salutary example : for he not only 
confessed with his lips that the Holy Scrip- 
tures are the highest and only rule in matters 
of faith, but in this confession he showed him- 
self to be thoroughly in earnest. He took 
captive every thought to the obedience of 
Christ. He submitted in a child-like spirit to 
the word of God, and received it humbly in its 
literal meaning and as interpreted by itself. 
Therefore he rejected every doctrine which 
contradicts the divine word, however accept- 
able it might seem to his natural reason. He 
stood upon the pure, uncorrupted word of God 
alone ; this alone he believed, taught and con- 
fessed. Hence his good conscience, his deep 
joy of faith, and his pure knowledge of God. 
He was conscious that he sought only God's 
truth and glory. Hence also the powerful ef- 
fect of his preaching. For the Gospel, which 
he again proclaimed in its purity, manifested 
its glorious divine power in his hearers and 
converted thousands, yea, whole nations, from 
the darkness of Romanism to the living God. 

Our times, on the other hand, are inundated 
with false human doctrines as with a flood. 



Ti 

Nearly every year adds to the number of new 
religions. The majority fabricate their own 
religion, and many set forth their peculiar no- 
tions and whims as new revelations, to say 
nothing of the fools who, in their satanic in- 
fatuation, proclaim it as the highest wisdom 
to believe in no God at all. But what is sad- 
dest of all is that so many, who still extol the 
Bible as the word of God, in so many points 
depart from it, and follow the false opinions of 
men in preference to the blessed and unchang- 
able utterances of the God of truth. 

Of what avail are all these futile doctrines 
of men? They are vain cobwebs, and nothing 
more. Though they appear ever so beautiful 
and ingenious, they are but shining bubbles 
which soon must burst. Wo to the unhappy 
mortals who put their trust in them ; tempo- 
ral and eternal ruin is their doom. 

Luther himself declares that he adhered to 
the command of God, Matt, xvii, 5 : ''This is 
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; 
hear ye him," and that thus he was preserved 
in the true faith, otherwise he would, during 
his life, have been constrained to embrace a 
score of different faiths. Let us follow his ex- 
ample ; beware of the traditions of men ; ac- 



Vll 



cept the word of God as the only ground of 
our salvation ; and remain steadfast in this 
unto our end. Then, though the last storms 
should burst upon us, we shall not fall. — 
Founded upon the eternal rock of God's word, 
we rest in the hand of the Almighty, out of 
which nothing shall be able to wrest us. 

To all Lutherans in North America, in sin- 
cere love, be then this humble tribute dedicated 
and commended. May this little book serve, 
by the grace of God, to instruct and edify 
those of maturer years and strengthen them 
in their faith. May it be welcomed in the 
school as a book of instruction to more ad- 
vanced youth. It would undoubtedly be of 
great benefit to children if in the schools they 
were made acquainted with the history of Lu- 
ther's life, and were thus early taught to love 
the pure doctrine of our Church. May God 
in mercy richly bless this book, though it is 
written in much weakness, to all who read it: 
it is His glory to choose that which is weak 
and despised in this world. 1 Cor. i, 27, 28. 
To Him be glory and honor and thanks and 
praise, in time and in eternity, through Jesus 
Christ, His dear Son, our Lord and Savior. 
Amen. 



IXDEX. 



I. Prophecies concerning the Antichrist and con- 
cerning Dr. Luther page 1 

II. Luther's Birth and Childhood 8 

III. Luther at School in Magdeburg 14 

IV. Luther at School in Eisenach 18 

V. Luther studies at Erfurt 21 

VI. Luther becomes a Monk 26 

VII. Luther's monastic Labor 31 

VIII. Luther's Ordination as Priest 3*7 

IX. Luther's Conflicts in the Cloister 41 

X. How Luther was consoled in the Cloister 46 

XI. Luther is called to Wittenberg 51 

XII. Luther's Pilgrimage to Rome 55 

XIII. Luther becomes Doctor of the Holy Scriptures. 63 

XIV. Tetzel's scandalous Indulgence traffic 70 

XV. The Elector's prophetic Dream of Luther 80 

XVI. Luther's ninety-five Theses. — Beginning of the 

Reformation 84 

XVII. Negotiations with Cajetan and Miltitz 87 

XVIII. The Leipzig Disputation 96 

XIX. Luther burns the papal Bull 97 

XX. Luther goes to Worms 100 

XXI. Luther at the Diet 104 

XXII. Luther at the Wartburg 112 

XXIII. Luther returns to Wittenberg 116 

XXIV. The Peasant war 120 

XXV. Luther's Marriage 124 

XXVI. The Marburg Conference 128 

XXVII. The Presentation of the Augsburg Confession.. 133 

XXVIII. Reformatory Labors 149 

XXIX. The last Years of Luther's Life . 161 

XXX. Luther's last Days, Death and Burial 171 



THE 

fife anfr pttte of Jr. Jflartto fitter. 



CHAPTEE I. 

Prophecies concerning the Antichrist and 

CONCERNING Dr. LUTHER. 

Our Lord Jesus Christy since tlie times 
of the apostles, lias done many great and 
wonderful works. But the most glorious of 
these is undoubtedly the Reformation of the 
Church, which He accomplished through His 
chosen instrument, Dr. Martin Luther. For 
through him He purified the doctrine from all 
error and idolatry, and delivered His people 
from the terrible tyranny of the Romish papa- 
cy. 

But when God designs to perform a great 
work He usually makes a previous announce- 
ment of it to His believers. He not only fore- 
tells the plagues and punishments which shall 
befall them, but also the glorious aid and de- 
liverance which He purposes to send them. 
This is true also in the times of the New Tes- 
tament, and we cannot sufficiently thank God 
for His grace. If the papacy, with its horrible 
abominations, had sprung up without any 
prophecy of it in the Scriptures, believers 
1* 



— 2 — 

might easily have been led astray by it. If 
no comfort and assistance had been promised 
them, they would not have had such cheerful- 
ness of faith in the persecutions and sufferings 
which they were called to endure, for Jesus' 
sake, at the hands of the pope. And if God 
had not so plainly predicted the Reformation 
effected through Dr. Luther, we could not so 
confidently confess it to be God's awn work, 
which He purposed from eternity, and which 
he gloriously accomplished in its time. 

Both in the Old and the New Testament 
God portrays the Romish Antichrist and his 
kingdom in the most vivid colors. The proph- 
et Daniel says of him, vii, 25 : "He shall 
speak great words against the Most High, and 
shall wear out the saints of the Most High, 
and think to change times and laws . ' ' More in 
detail he speaks of him in chapter xi, where 
he says, v. 31 — 38 : "And the king shall do 
according to his will ; and he shall exalt him- 
self, and magnify himself above every god, 
and shall speak marvellous things against the 
God of gods, and shall prosper till the indig- 
nation be accomplished : for that, that is deter- 
mined, shall be done. Neither shall he re- 
gard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of 
women, (matrimony,) nor regard any god : for 
he shall magnify himself above all. But in 
his estate shall he honor the god of forces 
(the idol of the mass) : and a god of whom 
his fathers knew not shall he honor with gold 
and silver, and with precious stones and pleas- 



— 3 — 

ant things.' ' This the apostle more fully ex- 
plains in 2 Thess. 2, 3 — 4 : "Let no man de- 
ceive you by any means, for that day (the day 
of judgment) shall not come, except there 
come a falling away first and that man of sin 
be revealed, the son of perdition ; who oppos- 
eth and exalteth himself above all that is 
called God, or that is worshipped ; so that ho 
as God sitteth in the temple of God showing 
himself that he is God." The doctrines of 
devils which the Antichrist with his adherents 
shall introduce, are mentioned by St. Paul in 
1 Tim. iv, 1 — 3 : "Now the Spirit speaketh 
expressly, that in the latter times some shall 
depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing 
spirits and doctrines of devils ; speaking lies 
in hypocrisy ; having their conscience seared 
with a hot iron ; forbidding to marry, and 
commanding to abstain from meats, which 
God hath created to be received with thanks- 
giving of them which believe and know 
the truth." And St. John thus describes 
the kingdom of Antichrist, in Rev. xvii, 
3 — 6: "And I saw a woman sit upon a 
scarlet beast, full of names of blasphemy, 
having seven heads and ten horns. And 
the woman was arrayed in purple and scar- 
let color, and decked with gold and precious 
stones and pearls, having a golden cup in 
her hand full of abominations and filthiness of 
her fornication ; and upon her forehead was a 
name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, 
the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of 



— 4 — 

the earth. And I saw the woman drunken 
with the blood of the saints, and with the 
blood of the martyrs of Jesus." 

This kingdom of Antichrist will continue 
until the day of judgment, as St. Paul testi- 
fies, 2 Thess. ii, 8 : "Whom the Lord shall 
consume with the spirit of His mouth, and 
shall destroy with the brightness of His com- 
ing. " But the Scriptures at the same time 
prophesy that God shall triumphantly deliver 
His Church from the captivity of the Romish 
Antichrist. Daniel predicts, xi, 44, that "tid- 
ings out of the east and out of the north shall 
trouble him." This took place in the time of 
Luther. Through him the tidings of the Gos- 
pel again resounded, from the north of Europe, 
from Germany, through all the world, and 
brought a deadly terror to the papacy, from 
which it will never fully recover. But highly 
important is another prophecy, 2 Thess. ii, 3, 
6, 8, which the Holy Ghost thrice repeats and 
which in v. 8 reads thus : "And then shall 
that Wicked be revealed." The mystery of 
Antichristian iniquity consists in this, that the 
pope, as the mortal enemy of Christ, fiercely 
persecuted and slew the true Christians, and 
yet so artfully decked himself with the name 
and word of Christ, that the world considered 
him Christ's best friend. . But Luther revealed 
the Antichrist, that is, exposed or unmasked 
him. He divested him of his hypocritical 
halo of holiness, and clearly proved from the 
word of God that the pope, though externally 



— 5 — 

lie seem as holy as the Lamb of God, is inter- 
nally nothing but Satan. Especially beauti- 
ful is the following passage, in which the Ho- 
ly Spirit describes the work of Luther with 
great clearness : "And I saw another angel 
fly in the midst of heaven, having the ever- 
lasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell 
on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, 
and tongue, and people, saying with a loud 
voice, Fear God and give glory to Him ; for 
the hour of His judgment is come ; and wor- 
ship Him that made heaven, and earth, and 
the fountains of waters." Rev. xiv, 6 — 7. 

But the voice of prophecy did not cease 
with the holy apostles. God desired to com- 
fort his saints, who sighed under the terrible 
oppression of the papacy. Therefore by His 
Holy Spirit He raised up many w r ho pointed to 
the approaching Reformation. From the 
great number of these prophecies we select 
only the following. Dante Alighieri, the 
greatest poet of Italy, who died in 1421, fore- 
told the year of the Reformation when he sang : 
"This I plainly see and therefore proclaim it. 
To give him time, the near stars are secure 
against opposition and resistance. Then, in 
1515, one sent of God will cleave that harlot 
and that giant that sins with her." In the 
year 1515, Luther became a Doctor of Theol- 
ogy and was sworn to teach the truth which, 
two years later, he publicly confessed. 

St. Mechtildis, in 1350, prophesied: "Iu 
Germany fierce conflicts will arise on account 



— 6 — 

of religion. Then the Eomish Church will 
fall from the faith entirely and publicly, which 
she had already done secretly. But in Ger- 
many a pure and persecuted little flock will 
remain, who shall worship God in piety and 
purity. God will raise up new Pastors who 
shall proclaim to the people the sound doc* 
trine of Christ, build up and renew the totter- 
ing Church, purify the Christian religion now 
corrupted by so many errors, and preach 
against Antichrist. But prior to this the 
pious will, on account of pure religion, be bit- 
terly persecuted by the Antichrist, the chief 
adversary of the pure doctrine." 

The esteemed martyr John Huss, who in 
1415 was burned by the papists, said to his 
enemies, shortly before his death, in allusion 
to his name, Huss, which, in Bohemian, means 
goose : "To-day you roast a goose, but after a 
hundred years a swan shall arise from my 
ashes, which you will not be able to roast." 

Jerome of Prague, the friend of Huss, who 
also died the martyr's death in 1415, declared 
to his judges a short time before his execution : 
"I shall leave a thorn in your hearts, and now 
cite you before the highest Judge to answer 
me within a hundred years." 

When the German emperor Sigismund saw 
the Keformation undertaken by the Council of 
Constance dissolved in smoke, he was very 
sad. Whilst he sought recreation in Press- 
burg, in Hungary, in 1420, a man of venera- 
ble aspect, clothed in priestly apparel, ap- 



- 7 — 

peared to him in a dream and informed him 
that the errors of the pope and the priests 
would be disclosed in future times by learned 
men who, with the aid of several princes, 
would reform the Church according to the word 
of God. 

Giralemo Savonarola, who was also burned 
by the pope in Florence, in 1498, prophesied 
shortly before his death : "The time will soon 
come when the abominations and idolatries of 
the Eoman pope will be punished, and a teach- 
er shall be born whom none will be able to re- 
sist/ ' 

Dr. John Fleck, a Franciscan prior, in an 
address delivered at the dedication of the Uni- 
versity of Wittenberg, said that all the world 
would receive wisdom from this "weiszen 
Berge," (white mountain.) 

In 1516 there was a man in Eostock who 
was commonly called the prophet. This man 
cried out before all the churches and other 
places of the city, that the deliverance of Is- 
rael from the Babylonish captivity was at hand 
and that the people should repent. "Awake, 
ye priests \" he cried, "from your deep sleep of 
sin, and repent ! Awake, ye citizens, from your 
errors and be converted ! Your salvation and 
freedom are near, ye saints ! Your destruc- 
tion is at hand, ye wicked \" &c. For this 
he was derided by some, and banished from 
the city by the authorities. 

It was a general report, immediately before 
the dawn of the Reformation, that a monk, 



— 8 — 

and lie a "hermit, would reform Christendom. 
For this God appointed the monk, Luther, 
who belonged to the Augustinian order, which 
was also called "the hermits/' 



CHAPTER II. 

Luther's Birth and Childhood. 

Luther was born on the 10th of November, 
1483, between eleven and twelve o'clock at 
night, at Eisleben, in the county of Mansfeld. 
On the following day he was baptized in St. 
Peter's Church and received the name Martin, 
after the saint to whom the day was dedicated, 
Bishop Martin of Tours. His parents were 
John Luther and Margaret, whose maiden 
name was Lindemann. They were originally 
from Moehra, a village between Eisenach and 
Salzungen. Qf his ancestors Luther says : 
"I am the son of a peasant. My father, 
grandfather, ancestors were all peasants. 
Afterwards my father removed to Mansfeld 
and became a miner. Hence I sprang." He 
came to that place in needy circumstances. 
"My parents," Luther says, "were at first 
very poor. My father was a poor hewer, and 
my mother carried the wood upon her back by 
which we were raised. They endured many 
hardships ; nowadays people would not sub- 
mit to them." Still, Luther always remem- 
bered the place of his birth with joy. He was 
accustomed to say : u Haec est Islebia" — here 



— 9 — 

is life, because there lie received it. He never 
ceased to love his native land, and always 
faithfully sought its welfare. 

God, in His goodness, blessed his father's 
labors in Mansfeld, so that He acquired a 
house and two furnaces. He also became a 
councilman and was, on account of his integ- 
rity, beloved and esteemed by the old count 
Guenther, and by all honest men. His moth- 
er "had many virtues that adorn a good wo- 
man. Her fear of God, and her prayerful 
spirit, were particularly remarked. She was 
looked upon by all other pious women as a 
model of virtue and decorum." Both parents 
taught their son to fear God and abound in 
good works. The father often prayed aloud 
and fervently, at the bed-side of the child, that 
God would give his son grace to remember His 
holy name and to promote the dissemination 
of His pure doctrine. Because he loved piety 
and learning, and also for his son's sake, he 
treated pious ministers and teachers with much 
respect and kindness. But the parental disci- 
pline was at the same time severe. Luther 
himself says : "My father once punished me 
so severely that I ran away, and disliked him 
until he won me to himself again. My moth- 
er at one time chastised me about a trifling 
nut until the blood came ; and the stern and 
austere life which she led induced me to 
flee to a cloister and become a monk. They 
thought they were doing right and meant it 
kindly ; they only failed to distinguish dispo- 



— 10 — 

sitions, according to which chastisement 
must be tempered. Punishment is necessary, 
but the apple should accompany the rod/' 

As soon as Martin was able to learn, his 
pious parents took measures to have him in- 
structed. His father, with earnest prayers, 
sent him to the Latin school, whither old Nich. 
Oemler often carried him on his arms. There 
he studied diligently and soon learned the 
Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's 
Prayer ; he also practiced penmanship and 
studied Donatus, the youth's Grammar, Cisio 
Janus (a Latin Calender,) and memorized 

some Christian hymns. This school he at- 

1/ 

tended until his fourteenth year. There also 
he experienced excessively harsh treatment. 
His teachers belonged to those "inept school- 
masters/' of whom he says that "they often 
/spoil fine talents by their clamoring and storm- 
ing, their knocks and blows, dealing with 
children as the jailor deals with thieves." 
He complains of the "hell and purgatory of 
the schools, in which we have been tortured 
about the casuals and the temporals, learning 
just nothing, with all the chastisement, trem- 
bling, fear and misery." "How sorry lam," 
he says in his epistle to the aldermen, "that I 
did not read more poets and historians, and 
that no person taught me them." 

In the time of his childhood at Mansfeld oc- 
curred also the little event of his school-days, 
which he narrates in his exposition of Genesis, 
and upon which he makes some edifying re- 



— 11 — 

marks. "When God proves us lie permits 
manifold obstacles to obstruct our path, so that 
we cannot see His purpose ; as when one amuses 
himself by playing with a worm, laying a 
stick or a straw in its way, so that it cannot 
creep whither it would, but must turn to and 
fro, and try everywhere and every way to get 
out of the difficulty. But this play of divine 
grace and benevolence we do not at first un- 
derstand, and the benefits and the grace itself, 
which are shown us, we explain to our terror 
and destruction. It happens to us as it hap- 
pened to me once, when I was a little boy, and 
to my companions, with whom I was collect- 
ing the alms by which we were supported in 
our studies. When we were going around 
from house to house, at the time when the 
Church celebrates the birth of Christ, singing 
in four parts the usual psalms about the child 
Jesus born in Bethlehem, we came to the 
house of a peasant, which stood alone at the 
end of the village. When the peasant heard 
us singing, he came out and inquired in rough, 
rustic words, where we were, and said : 
" Where are you boys?" bringing some saus- 
ages along, which he purposed to give us. 
But we were so terrified at the words that we 
all ran away ; although we had no good rea- 
son to be afraid, since the peasant had the se- 
rious intention to give us the sausages, and of- 
fered them in good faith. Our hearts had be- 
come timid on account of the daily threats and 
tyranny, which the teachers practiced towards 



— 12 — 

the poor pupils, and were thus the more easily 
alarmed by such sudden terrors. While we 
were running away the peasant called us, and 
we laid aside our fear, went to him, and re- 
ceived the gifts which he offered us." We 
learn from this, at the same time, how he had 
to struggle with poverty at Mansfeld, as it is 
related of him also, that he attended funerals 
for a penny. 

This tyrannical school discipline could only 
render our Martin shy and timorous. But the 
religious instruction which he received also 
tended only to alarm and terrify him still 
more ; for what he learned was mostly nothing 
but papfstic superstition and idolatry. No one 
taught him to derive comfort from his holy 
baptism ; on the contrary, he says of his 
teachers : "As soon as we have laid off our 
infant shoes, the act of baptism scarcely be- 
ing completed, they deprived us of all again 
by telling us : 0, thou hast long since lost 
thy baptism and polluted thy baptismal dress 
with sin ; thou must now think about atoning 
and rendering satisfaction for thy sins, of 
fasting and praying, of pilgrimages and found- 
ations, until thou hast appeased G-od and been 
restored to His grace." Much less did he 
learn truly to know Christ. ' ( I was accustomed 
from childhood," he says, "to become pale and 
terror-stricken when I heard the name of 
Christ mentioned ; for I was not taught to 
think of him otherwise than as of a rigorous 
and angry Judge." He was directed to 



— 13 — 

his own merits, rather, and to the intercession 
of the saints. He remarks upon this : "We 
were shamefully deceived under the papacy, 
for Christ was not set before us in His clemen- 
cy, as He is by the prophets, apostles, and by 
Christ Himself, but he was represented as ter- 
rible, so that we feared him more than we did 
Moses, and thought that the doctrines of Mo- 
ses were milder and more benignant than 
those of Christ. Therefore we knew no better 
than to think of Christ as an angry Judge, whose 
wrath we must appease by good works and 
holy living, and whose grace we must secure 
by the merits and intercession of the saints. 
This is not only base lying, and lamentably 
deceiving poor consciences, but it is also a 
deep revilement of the grace of GTod, a denial 
of Christ's death, resurrection, ascension and 
all his unspeakable benefits, a defamation and 
condemnation of the Gospel, and an extirpa- 
tion of the faith, while nothing but abomina- 
tions, falsehoods, errors and blasphemies are 
substituted for it. If this is not darkness I 
know not what darkness is ; and yet no one 
perceived it, but all regarded it as the pure 
truth." 

Thus Luther grew up in the darkness of pa- 
pistic error, and even as a child was compelled 
to experience its bitterness. Not a drop of 
grace, not a ray of heavenly truth, refreshed 
his heart, which was filled with terror on ac- 
count of Christ's wrath. Therefore he vowed, 
already in his childhood, to make a pilgrim- 



— 14 — 

age to Koine and "become pious' ' as he, accord- 
ing to a manuscript account, once expressed 
it when the conversation turned upon his visit 
to Home. Thus he had entirely lost Christ 
whom he had put on in Baptism, and would 
have been eternally lost if God had called him 
away in that condition. This he himself con- 
fesses when he says : "If God refused to help 
us until we become grateful, what would have 
become of me when I was twelve years old ? ,J 



CHAPTER III. 

Luther at School in Magdeburg. 

At that time the Latin schools in Saxony 
were in a tolerably good condition. When, 
therefore, Martin had reached his fourteenth 
year, he was, in 1497, sent to the Latin school 
of the Franciscans at Magdeburg, in company 
with John Reineck, who ever afterwards re- 
mained his good friend. There, like the son 
of many an honest and wealthy man, he sought 
his bread by singing at the doors of citizens. 
What is to become great must begin small, 
and when children are trained to effeminacy 
and sumptuousness they suffer for it all their 
lives. 

While there, he was taken with a violent 
fever, which caused him great distress. Water 
having been denied him, he suffered much 
from thirst ; and once, on a Friday, when all 
had gone to Church and left him alone in the 



— 15 — 

house, he crept upon his hands and knees into 
the kitchen, seized a vessel containing fresh 
water, drank it with great relish, and returned, 
in the same way, to his chamber, which, in 
his feebleness, he could scarcely reach before 
the members of the household returned. Up- 
on this draught he fell into a profound sleep, 
and the fever left him. At a later period he 
observed, with reference to this, that he had 
been informed by several learned physicians 
that in such burning fevers a copious draught of 
cold water diminishes the internal heat, as fire 
is quenched by water. 

Luther relates an example of monastic sanc- 
tity, occurring at this period, which made a 
deep impression upon him. "In my fourteenth 
year, when I was attending school at Magde- 
burg, I saw with these eyes a prince of An- 
halt, the brother of the provost Adolph, af- 
terwards Bishop of Merseburg, in a monk's 
cowl begging bread through the wide streets, 
and bending under the sack, like an ass ; but 
his brother went without a burden, by his side, 
that the pious prince might alone present to 
the world the highest example of gray, ton- 
sured sanctity. They had so beguiled him 
that he also performed every other work of 
the monastery, like the rest of the monks ; 
and he had, by fasting, watching and mortifi- 
cation, become so reduced that he looked like 
a skeleton, nothing but skin and bone. He 
died soon afterward, for he was unable to en- 
dure such a rigorous life. In fine, whoever 



— 16 — 

saw him, melted with devotion, and had to be 
ashamed of his secular calling. I think 
there are still many in Magdeburg who saw 
it." 

Efforts were made also to represent by pic- 
tures, this great priestly sanctity to the peo- 
ple. Luther describes one which must have 
made a deep impression upon him in his 
youth. "They painted a large ship, which 
they called the Holy Christian Church, in 
which sat no laymen and no kings nor princes, 
but only the pope with his cardinals and bish- 
ops, who occupied the front, under the Holy 
Spirit, and the priests and monks, who sat 
with oars on the sides ; and thus they sailed 
away towards heaven. The laity swam in the 
water about the ship ; some were drowning, 
some drawing themselves to the ship by ropes, 
which the holy fathers, by grace and by shar- 
ing their good works, cast out to them that 
they might not drown, but be taken along to 
heaven, clinging to the ship. There was not a 
pope, cardinal, bishop, priest or monk in the 
water ; nothing but laymen. This picture 
was a representation and brief summary of 
their doctrine concerning secular callings ; 
and that it is a fair representation of the doc- 
trine contained in their books they cannot de- 
ny. For I also was one of the company that 
taught such things, believing them in my ig- 
norance. Thus they condemned laymen with 
their whole order, insomuch that even princes 
and lords, in the hour of death, had monk's 



— 17 — 

cowls put upon their heads and were buried in 
them, thus boldly denying Christ and renounc- 
ing and despising Baptism and all sacraments, 
condemning their secular vocation, putting all 
their trust in the holy cowl and the imputation 
of the good works of the order, and deriving 
all their consolation from them, whilst, cling- 
ing to their rope and their ship, they ascended 
to heaven/' Once he exhibited a tablet, upon 
which this picture was painted, dilated upon 
its meaning, and then added : "It is a very 
old picture, conceived by a monk of Venice, 
the purport of which we believed as an article 
of faith, yea, even against the Christian faith/ ' 
When Martin had returned from Magdeburg 
to Mansfeld, the aged count Guenther was 
taken very sick and had old John Luther in- 
vited to his castle, where he remained and 
waited upon him till the count's death. When 
he returned home he spoke in high terms of 
praise to his family of the excellent testament 
of the count. In answer to the inquiry about 
the contents of this glorious last will and tes- 
tament, he said that "he desired to depart 
from this world trusting alone in the bitter' 
sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
consoling himself with His merits, and com- 
mending his soul to Him/' "I thought," 
Luther afterwards said, "even as a young pu- 
pil, can this be such an excellent testament ? 
For it seemed to me that if the count had be- 
queathed something considerable to churches 
or monasteries, this would have beea a more 
2* 



— 18 — 

note-worthy testament. But we see by this 
that our God has always, even in the midst of 
the darkness of the papacy, preserved many 
Christians unto eternal life, who have em- 
braced the merits of His only Son and clung 
to them in faith. Therefore my father justly 
praised the count's last will as an excellent 
testament, although as a young pupil I did 
not then understand it." 



CHAPTEK IV. 

Luther at School in Eisenach. 

After Luther had been but one year in Mag- 
deburg, he went in 1498, by the command 
of his parents, to Eisenach, where his mother 
had many relatives. There he attended the 
Latin School connected with the church of St. 
George. Its rector was John Trebonius, a 
learned man and distinguished poet, who 
taught Grammar more skillfully than was the 
case elsewhere. Whenever he entered the 
school he took off his cap until he was seated 
upon his chair, from which he lectured. The 
other teachers were required to do the same, 
and when they occasionally forgot it, he ad- 
monished them earnestly. "For among these 
young pupils," he said, "sit those of whom 
God may make our future mayors, chancellors, 
learned doctors and rulers ; although you do 
not know them now, it is proper that you 



— 19 — 

should show them honor." In Dr. Luther 
this was abundantly realized. 

In Eisenach his condition was, at first, ex- 
ceedingly miserable. His relatives gave him 
no sufficient support. He was therefore com- 
pelled to seek his scanty subsistence by sing- 
ing from house to house, and often to suffer 
hunger. At a later period he himself says : 
"Do not despise the boys who sing at the 
doors partem propter Deum, (i. e., bread for 
God's sake.) I too have been such a wanderer, 
going the rounds for bread, especially in my 
own dear town of Eisenach." He w T as so de- 
pressed on account of this destitution that he 
despaired of maintaining himself at school, 
and thought of returning home. But he was 
soon to experience how paternally God cared 
for him. Once he had been roughly repulsed 
from three different houses. The choir went 
on to the residence of Conrad Cotta, an hon- 
orable and wealthy citizen. Dame Ursula 
Cotta had long been "affectionately inclined 
toward the boy on account of his singing and 
of his fervent prayers at Church." She in- 
vited him in, gave him many presents, and a 
few days afterwards received him to her house 
and table. This kindness Luther never for- 
got. When Henry Cotta, her son, subsequent- 
ly studied in Wittenberg, Luther received him 
to his table in turn. Of Ursula the report be- 
came current that God blessed her, after Mar- 
tin's reception into her house, with unusual 



— 20 — 

prosperity. May this stimulate us also to as- 
sist poor pupils in their studies. 

In Martin a burning passion for learning 
was now aroused. He perceived "how beauti- 
ful a thing is knowledge/' and studied Gram- 
mar, Rhetoric and Poetry with all industry. 
With his quickness of apprehension and fine 
talents he was soon in advance of his fellow pu- 
pils, and surpassed them in elocution and com- 
position, both in verse and prose , There he laid 
the foundation of his future learning ; yea, the 
faithful instruction there received contributed 
to the fulfillment of the prophecy, which had 
lately been uttered concerning him in the 
monastery of the place. 

About the year 1490 there lived in that 
monastery a Franciscan friar by the name of 
John Hilten, a quiet, pious old man. He had 
been thrown into a dungeon by the monks, 
because he had attacked several manifest 
abuses in monastic life. On account of age 
and the injurious influence of the prison, he 
became a prey to disease. He had the prior 
called, and notified him of his weakness. But 
when his superior, moved by pharisaic bitter- 
ness, and envy, encountered him with harsh 
expressions, he ceased to complain of his 
physical weakness, sighed deeply, and said, 
with earnest gesture, that he would bear such 
injustice cheerfully for Christ's sake, although 
he had written and taught nothing derogatory 
to the monastic order, but had attacked only 
gross abuses. Finally he said: "Another 



— 21 — 

man shall appear in 1516, who shall extir- 
pate you monks, and against whom ye shall 
be powerless/' Concerning this Luther says 
in his Table Talk : "Now must John Huss be 
remembered, according to the prophecy of 
John Hilten, who was a monk at Eisenach, 
and who was slain within our own memory. 
He is reported to have said, when death was 
approaching : 'another shall come, whom ye 
shall see V This prophecy was spoken when 
I was a boy and went to school at Eisenach/ ' 
Luther remained in the house of Cotta un- 
til his departure from Eisenach. There he 
also devoted his attention to Music, of which 
he was always fond, and learned to play the 
flute. Eisenach he always, in gratitude, 
called "his dear town," because he had "there 
learned and experienced so much good." 



CHAPTER V. 

Luther studies at Erfurt. 

On the 17th of July, 1501, Luther, who had 
now attained the age of 18 years, went to the 
University of Erfurt. As he relates, this 
University was at that time "in such high re- 
pute that all others were in comparison looked 
upon as insignificant. How great was the 
pomp and glory when Masters were graduated, 
and torches were borne before them, and hon- 
ors were showered upon them ; I hold that no 
other temporal joys equalled these. !So was 



— 22 — 

there also great splendor when the Doctor's 
degree was conferred ; people rode about the 
city, dressed and decorated for the occasion. 
All has passed away now ; but I wish that 
these ceremonies were still practiced." 

There the celebrated John of Wesel, a wit- 
ness of the truth, whose writings are still es- 
teemed, had taught. Luther says of him : 
"John Weselia ruled the High School of Er- 
furt with his works, by the study of which I 
also was prepared for the Master's degree." 
Because he had attacked the corruption of the 
papacy, he was thrown into prison, where he 
died after two years of suffering, two years 
before Luther's birth. He foretold the Kefor- 
mation in the words : "I perceive in the fu- 
ture that our souls shall faint with hunger, 
unless a star of mercy arise upon us from on 
high to dispel the darkness from our eyes, 
which the lies of the leaders have enchant- 
ed, and to restore the light, which shall, 
after so many years, finally break this yoke 
of Babylonish captivity. 

His parents supported him from the proceeds 
of their mine, as he himself says in praise of 
his father. He "supported me, with great 
love and fidelity, at the high school of Er- 
furt, and by his arduous labor he aided in 
bringing me where I now am." 

Among his teachers, Jodocus Truttvetter 
was one of the most esteemed, whom he calls 
the "first theologian and philosopher" and 
his "dear teacher and father." At a later 



— 23 — 

period lie reminded him, that from him he 
first learned the duty of receiving in faith the 
canonical Scriptures alone, while all others 
are subjected to criticism. From another 
of his teachers, John Greffenstein, a learned 
and pious man, he once heard that Huss had 
been condemned to death without conviction, 
and in violation of justice and law, by illiter- 
ate tyrants. Among others he also heard 
Usingen, who afterwards became his violent 
enemy, John Bigard, whom he subsequently 
recommended to a pastorate, "because he was 
a teacher whom he was under obligations to 
honor, and Gerhard Seeker, who accepted the 
Gospel and for this suffered manifold persecu- 
tion. 

At first Luther studied the subtle philosophy 
of his times, Logic and Dialectics, then Eth- 
ics and Physics. At the same time he read 
the best ancient Latin authors, such as Cicero, 
Virgil, Livy and Plautus. Nor did he, like 
the school -boys, read them for the sake of 
the words, but for their instructions, and 
as mirrors of human lile. Therefore he paid 
close attention to the doctrines and proverbs 
of these writers, and as his memory was 
faithful, the most of that which he had read 
and heard was always at his command. Al- 
though he was naturally a sprightly and jovi« 
al youth, he still every morning commenced 
his studies with fervent prayer and attendance 
at Church, as it was his motto : "Diligence in 
prayer is the better half of study." He 



— 24 — 

missed no lectures and was glad to ask his 
teachers questions, respectfully conversed with 
them, often reviewed lessons with his compan- 
ions, and when there were no public lectures 
he was constantly to be found in the Universi- 
ty library. 

At one time, while he was examining the 
books one after another, that he might become 
acquainted with those that were good, he 
came upon the Latin Bible, which he had nev- 
er before seen, though now in his twentieth 
year. He was astonished to find that it con- 
tained many more texts, Gospels and Epistles, 
than were usually explained in the postills 
and on the pulpits. Turning over the pages 
of the Old Testament, his eye caught the his ■ 
tory of Samuel and his mother Hannah. This 
he read with avidity and with great delight ; 
and because all this was new to him, he 
wished most heartily that God would, at some 
time, make him the possessor of such a book. 
Selnecker relates that when he read the words : 
"The Lord bringeth low and lifteth up ; He 
raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth 
the beggar from the dunghill/ ' he said: 
"How well adapted is this text for poor schol- 
ars, of whom I am one!" These words of 
Luther are also remarkable : "When I was 
a young man I heard learned men and good 
grammarians dispute with their opponents and 
say, that when we read the prophetic and 
apostolic writings we find a doctrine quite dif- 
ferent from that which ye priests proclaim." 



— 25 — 

By his great industry he attained the first 
degree of academic honors as early as 1503, 
and thus secured the right to deliver philosoph- 
ical lectures as a bachelor of arts. Not long 
afterwards he was taken very sick, so that he 
despaired of his life. But an old priest, who vis- 
ited him, administered consolation, saying : 
"My dear bachelor, be of good comfort ; you 
will not die of this illness. Our God will 
yet make a great man of you, who shall com- 
fort many people. For upon him whom God 
loveth, and of whom he would make something 
blessed, he early imposes the holy cross, and 
in this school of affliction patient people learn 
much." 

In that period, about 1593, another misfor- 
tune befell him. On Tuesday after Easter he 
was on his way home to visit his parents, with 
his arms at his side, as was the custom among 
students. Accidentally he struck his foot 
against his sword, when the blade fell out and 
sundered a main artery. He was about half 
a league from Erfurt, with but one companion. 
The blood flowed with alarming copiousness 
and could not be stanched ; and when he laid 
himself upon his back, raising his leg and 
putting his finger upon the wound, his limb 
swelled frightfully. Finally a surgeon came 
from the city and dressed the wound. But 
Luther, when death seemed imminent, cried : 
"Mary, help me V' and in the night, when the 
wound again opened, so that he fainted, he 
again called only upon Mary. "At that 



— 26 — 

time/' lie said in after years, "I should have 
died relying upon Mary." 

In the early part of the year 1505, Luther 
attained the Master's degree. At his gradua- 
tion he obtained the second position, and im- 
mediately commenced giving lectures upon 
Aristotelian Physics and Ethics. "Now there 
can be for me no cessation of study/' said he, 
"if I am not to bring disgrace upon the Ger- 
man Masters." He left nearly the whole aca- 
demic youth behind him, and his extraordinary 
gifts were now the admiration of the whole 
University. According to the will of his 
father, he was now to devote himself to the 
law, for which purpose he was supplied with 
books. For John Luther did not desire that 
he should become bishop, priest or monk, and be 
"supported by others in sumptuous living, in- 
stead of securing a livelihood by his own ex- 
ertions." He rather thought that his son 
should, some day, be an honor to him by gain- 
ing temporal offices and dignities. He even 
thought of marrying him in wealth and hon- 
or ; when suddenly Luther's course of life 
took a different direction. 

The scholastic philosophy which Luther 
learned in Erfurt did not satisfy him. The 
thought constantly recurred : "0 when wilt 
thou become holy and render satisfaction, that 
God may be gracious?" "The high schools," 
he says, "when they would render persons pi- 
ous, set the judgment before them and render 
it as hot as possible. Thus they terrify the 



— 27 — 

people and show them no way to escape from 
their terror." In Erfurt he twice repeated 
the vow to become holy and go upon a pilgrim- 
age to Eome. Frequently he was so beset by 
such terrors, when he earnestly reflected upon 
the final judgment, that his life was endan- 
gered. Then one of his best friends, Alexius, 
was assassinated. And in the summer of 1505, 
when he was returning from a visit to his pa- 
rents, he was overtaken, between Erfurt and 
the village of Stotterheim, by a violent thun- 
der storm. The lightning struck at his feet 
and a terrific crash followed ; he fell to the 
earth, and in his terror he cried : "dear Saint 
Anna, help, and I will immediately become a 
monk." He would enter a cloister to propi- 
tiate God with masses, and to merit salvation 
by monastic holiness. "I did not willingly 
become a monk," he said at a later period, 
"and least of all thought of pampering the 
stomach, but, encompassed with the sudden ter- 
ror and anguish of death, I made a forced vow." 
Luther now communicated his resolution to 
the monks. He afterwards said : "I intended 
to make my purpose known also to my parents, 
that I might hear their opinion upon it, as I 
was an only son, and heir to their property. 
But they taught me from Jerome that I should 
pay no regard to father and mother, but flee 
to the cross of Christ. They also adduced the 
words of our Lord : 'No man, having put his 
hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit 
for the kingdom of God/ " 



— 28 — 

Upon this lie invited his friends to supper, 
delighted them once more with songs and in- 
strumental music ? and asked them to rejoice 
with him for the last time, as he was resolved 
to enter a monastery. They entreated him to 
change his purpose, but in vain. He said to 
them : "To-day ye see me, henceforth no 
more." He relates this himself, and adds : 
"Thus I remained firm in my resolution, 
thinking I would never leave the cloister ." In 
the same night, the 17th of July, 1505, he 
hastened to the monastery of the Augustin- 
ians, and obtained admission, as previously 
agreed upon. He left all his possessions be- 
hind him, taking with him only Virgil and 
Plautus. The next morning he communicated 
the event to other friends by letter, and 
thanked them for all their manifestations of 
kindness. He also wrote to his parents, and 
sent them his ring of master of arts and his 
secular clothing. 

His friends were saddened even to tears, that 
one so gifted should be buried alive in the 
cloister. Two whole days they, with other 
students, watched the monastery and besieged 
it, as it were, hoping to obtain Luther again : 
but in vain. The doors remained closed and 
bolted, and during a whole month no one was 
permitted to see him. 

His father also was deeply grieved at the 
event. In his answer he addressed him in less 
respectful terms than formerly, and denied 
him all paternal favor. He even undertook 



— 29 — 

the journey to Erfurt for the purpose of chang- 
ing his son's mind ; and when the latter ex- 
cused himself on the ground of his being* 
called by a terrible apparation from heaven, 
he replied : u God grant that it may not be a 
deception or a satanic illusion. Why, have 
you not heard that parents should be obeyed, 
and that nothing should be done without their 
knowledge and counsel ?" But his father fi- 
nally permitted himself to be persuaded by his 
friends. Two of his sons had died of the 
plague, and the information had been brought 
that Martin also was dead. Upon this his 
friends urged him that he should make the 
sacrifice and consent that his son should en- 
ter the "holy order." He had many scruples 
and was strongly disinclined, but said at last : 
"Let it pass ; God grant that it may be well." 
Still he did not consent cheerfully. 

According to monastic custom, Luther now 
dropped his baptismal name of Martin and as- 
sumed that of Augustine. This he subse- 
quently looked upon with horror, and consid- 
ered it a renunciation of his Baptism. Why 
God permitted him to enter the cloister he him- 
self explains : u God, whose mercies are innu- 
merable and whose wisdom is infinite, out of 
such error and sin brought forth great good. 
It seems to me that Satan foresaw in my youth 
what he now suffers. Therefore he so raged 
and raved against me and sought, with such 
manifold inventions, to hinder and destroy 
me, that I often marvelled, and wondered 



— 30 — 

whether I was the only one among mankind 
that suffered his attacks. But it was God's 
will, as I now perceive, that I should learn, by 
my own experience, the philosophy of the 
schools and the holiness of the cloisters, that 
is, become acquainted with them by many sins 
and ungodly works, so that the ungodly peo- 
ple might not be able to boast against me, 
their future opponent, that I condemn what I 
do not understand." 

With the wisdom of the papistic universi- 
ties, Luther had already become acquainted. 
At a later period he justly called them schools 
of Satan. "For," he observes, "they have 
deserved nothing of me. I believe I do not 
lack understanding and my industry is known ; 
but I have given my advice that young per- 
sons should avoid the philosophy and the 
theology of the schools as they would the 
death of their souls." Therefore he again 
repeats the apostolic warning : "Beware lest 
any man spoil you through philosophy and 
vain deceit," which he unhesitatingly applies 
to the philosophy of the schools. "What 
else have our universities in the whole world 
hitherto been than destroyers of excellent 
talents and corrupters of youth ? Not only 
because these had full license to practice every 
sin and vice, which is the least ground for 
complaint ; but because no sound, saving doc- 
trine was taught, and the study of Christian 
doctrine was obscured by irksome, useless and 
mischievous sophistries, by which many good 



— 31 — 

and noble minds were confused, and prevented 
from bearing valuable fruit." He complains 
of the "spectres of the high schools, which we 
have established with inhuman gifts, and by 
which we were burdened with many doc- 
tors, preachers, masters, priests and monks, 
that is, with great, rough, fat asses in red and 
brown caps, who taught us nothing good, but 
only rendered us more blind and frantic/' 

The papistic philosophy of the schools had 
driven Luther to despair. He entered the 
cloister for the purpose of finding salvation. 
We shall see whether he found it. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

Luther's Monastic Labor. 

When Luther had entered the monastery he 
asked for a Bible, and the monks gave him one. 
It was bound in red leather and fastened to a 
chain. He read it so eagerly that he knew the 
page and position of each passage. The whole 
day was sometimes spent in reflection upon an 
important sentence. He also committed many 
passages of the prophets to memory, although 
he did not then understand them. 

But because he studied so much the monks 
became hostile to him, for they thought if the 
brother study he would gain dominion over 
them. In their monkish Latin they said to 
him : "Sacrum per nacrum et per civitatem/' 



— 32 — 

that is, "the sack on the back and off through 
the city ;'/ and they frankly declared to him : 
"By begging, and not by studying, are the 
monasteries served and enriched. " They im- 
posed upon him the meanest and filthiest 
work ; he was required to act as doorkeeper, 
to regulate the clock, to sweep the church, and 
even to clean the water closets. The most 
burdensome task to him, of course, was the 
incessant begging about the city. Luther 
obeyed without complaint. But the Universi- 
ty of Erfurt, because he was a member of it, 
interceded for him with the prior, and Dr. 
John von Staupitz, the provincial of the Au- 
gustinians, also used his influence in his be- 
half, in consequence of which he was released 
from such servile work. It was Staupitz also 
who advised Luther above all things to study 
the Holy Scriptures, and to make himself in- 
timately acquainted with them. This advice 
Luther followed with such assiduity that Stau- 
pitz was astonished at it, kept his eye partic- 
ularly upon him, and stimulated him to con- 
tinue his studies. But in those days there 
were few who entertained such thoughts ; and 
Dr. Usingen, one of his monastic teachers, 
once said to him : "Why, brother Martin, what 
is the Bible? We should read the ancient 
teachers, who have drawn the substance of 
truth from the Bible. The Bible is the insti- 
gator of all disturbance/ ' 

Of his monastic brethren Luther says : "But 
few earnestly desired to be ( truly holy monks/ 



— S3 — 

of whom I was one. The most of them were 
careless good fellows, accustomed to the easy 
life of the priesthood and the cloister, who 
never, during all their lives, experienced a 
true spiritual conflict/' He now became ac- 
quainted with the holiness of the cloister in 
general. "Never," he says, "have I seen a 
fasting in the papacy that was truly such in 
the Christian sense ; to eat no meat they called 
fasting, while they ate the best fish with the 
most delicious condiments and drank good 
wine/' "They taught that temporal posses- 
sions, vineyards and farms, should be despised, 
and yet were the greediest for them, and ate 
and drank the best that was to be had." "I 
saw a brother in the monastery who could eat 
five rolls, one of which was sufficient for me." 
Nothing was burdensome in the papacy ; eve- 
rything was done willingly and cheerfully. 
Their fasting was easier for them than our 
eating. For each day of fasting there were 
three days of feasting. As an evening colla- 
tion each monk received two pots of good beer 
and a mug of wine, with gingerbread or salt- 
cake, so that drinking was rendeied easy. 
The poor brethren thus looked like fiery an- 
gels, so very gaunt and pale were they V — 
The monks are an idle, lazy people, answering 
to the description given by St. Peter, 2 Peter 
ii, 13, who look upon this life as given for 
pleasure. Nowhere is there more pride than 
in the cloisters, nowhere more insatiable ava- 
rice, lewdness, hatred and envy, which cannot 
3* 



— 34 — 

be conquered, nor opposed, and by which they 
bite and rend each other. Their gluttony and 
.drunkenness, indolence and disinclination to 
divine worship, are manifest. They are ser- 
vants of their own bellies and swinish profli- 
gates." 

'Still they lauded monasticism as the high- 
est &rid most glorious state, and spoke of en- 
tering the cloister as of a new baptism. Ac- 
cordingly, when Luther had taken the monas- 
tic vow "the monks congratulated him that he 
" was. now an innocent child that came forth 
pure' from the baptismal font." All united 
in: praising him for the "glorious deed" which 
he had performed, in virtue of which he 
"would be able to sanctify and save himself by 
his own wotks */' and he "heard with great 
,4'eii'ght such sweet praise and fine words 
^ncerning his own works ;-' tor he at that 
tfcie really believed that he could thus merit 
external life. 

He himself tells us : "This monastic bap- 
tism they afterwards extolled still more high- 
ly > of which I shall mention an example. I 
was once in the Franciscan cloister at Arn- 
stadt. At the table Dr. Henry Kuehne was 
present, whonrthey considered quite an ex- 
traordinary man. He lavished praises on the 
monastic order as a glorious thing, superior 
to all other conditions in life, because this 
new baptism gives it the singular advantage 
that, although he had regretted having become 
a monk and had thus rendered all his former 



— 35 — 

good works and holy life worthless, he might 
repent, and form the resolution to become a 
monk if he were not one already, and this 
would be just as efficacious as his first en- 
trance into the order, so that he would again 
be as pure as if he had just received baptism ; 
and this resolution he might repeat with the 
same effect as often as he chose. We young 
monks sat with mouths and noses open, and 
smacked our lips in devotion at the comfort- 
able speech upon our holy monkery. The no- 
tion expressed was common among the monks. ; ' 
At that time Luther also shared this opin- 
ion. Though others may have sought but 
carnal pleasure in the cloister, he led the 
most rigorous life in external holiness. In 
general, as a monk he was the most zealous 
papist to be found. He afterwards testified : 
"I can say of myself with truth that if, be- 
fore the light of the Gospel had again dawned, 
there was one who sincerely revered the pa- 
pistic ordinances and the traditions of the 
fathers, was zealous for them, deemed them 
sacred and considered their observance holi- 
ness, burned for them and defended them as 
necessary to salvation, I am that person." 
"I worshipped the pope, not for the sake of 
benefices and titles, but in singleness of heart, 
with an honest zeal, and for the glory of God." 
"Such saints as Paul himself, if not greater 
persecutors of Christ, were we, especially I, 
.under the papacy. For so highly did I re- 
gard the pope's authority that I considered it 



— 36 — 

a sin worthy of eternal death to deviate from 
him even in the smallest particular, and hence 
it was that I regarded Huss as such a dam- 
nable heretic that it seemed to me a sin even to 
think of him, and that I, to defend the pope's 
authority, would have been glad to light a 
fire for his destruction, and would have con- 
sidered this an act of the highest obedience to 
God." "If any one had then taught what, 
by the grace of God, I now believe and teach, 
I would have torn him with my teeth/' 

How sincerely Luther then adored the pope 
is shown by the following story which he him- 
self narrates. "Once, at Erfurt, in the libra- 
ry of the monastery, I, who was then a young 
theologian, found a book containing sermons 
of John Huss, and was impelled by an itching 
curiosity to see what the arch heretic had 
taught, as the book was left unburnt in the 
public library. In this I found so much that 
I was amazed, and wondered why a man who 
was so mighty in the Scriptures and so pious 
could have been condemned to the stake. But 
because his name was so horribly execrated 
that I then assumed that if any person would 
think well of it the walls would become black 
and the sun would cease to shine, I closed the 
book and went away with a wounded heart, 
but comforted myself with the thought that 
he might have written this before he became a 
heretic, as I was then not yet acquainted with 
the history of the Council of Constance/ • — 
"When I heard the name of Huss I was fright- 



- 37 - 

ened, and did not venture to believe myself 
when I chanced upon a scriptural sermon from 
his pen." Thus terribly was Luther en- 
chanted and captivated by the papacy. What 
a miracle of the Holy Spirit's grace was requi- 
site to deliver him from it ! 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Luther's Ordination as Priest. 

The glory was great in the papacy when 
one was ordained as priest and read his first 
mass. "Blessed was the woman/' says Luth- 
er , "who bare a priest, and father and mother, 
with all their friends, rejoiced." For "a con- 
secrated priest was to other baptized Chris- 
tians as the morning star to a smoking wick/' 
Consecration raised the subject even above 
apostles, bishops and martyrs who had not 
been priests, "such great efficacy was in the 
chrism." "The first mass was held in high 
estimation and yielded much money, for offer- 
ings and gifts poured in like flakes in a snow- 
storm. Then the dear young lord had to 
dance with his mother, if she was living, so 
that the spectators wept for joy ; if she was 
dead, he read mass for her soul and delivered 
her from purgatory." 

The fathers had resolved that Luther's or- 
dination should take place on Cantate Sunday, 
May 2, 1507. He invited his father and other 
friends to be present. The former made prep- 



— 38 — 

arations as though he were going to a wed- 
ding, rode to the cloister in pomp, and pre- 
sented his son twenty florins. Luther testi- 
fies : "When I read my first mass at Erfurt, 
I nearly died ; for there was no faith, and I 
looked merely at my own worthiness, and was 
concerned merely not to be a sinner and to 
omit none of the manipulations and displays 
of the mass." 

There was a regulation that, under pain of 
excommunication, no priest who had begun 
the mass and said the prayer should, without 
absolute necessity, leave the altar and per- 
mit another to finish the mass. To this pen- 
alty he came very near exposing himself. — 
When he had read the words: "I bring to 
Thee, the living God, this sacrifice/' he fell 
into such consternation that he thought of 
leaving the altar, and would have done so if 
his preceptor had not deterred him. "For," 
he thought, "who am I that I should address 
the great Majesty, when all others tremble to 
appear in the presence of a prince or a king, 
or to address them?" "Since that time," 
he said to some friends, "I have always read 
mass with great horror." 

When he was ordained the bishop placed 
the cup in his hand, and said: "Eeceive the 
power to sacrifice for the living and the dead." 
Of this Luther subsequently wrote : "That 
the earth did not then open and swallow us 
both up was owing to the infinite patience and 
long suffering of God." Notwithstanding all 



— 39 — 

anti-Christian additions, however, he always 
acknowledged the validity of his ordination. 
Saying mass, on the other hand, he declared 
to he the greatest sin of his life, "because he 
thus so frequently denied the only perfect sac- 
rifice of Jesus Christ. 

After the mass they gathered around the 
festive board. At the table the new priest be- 
gan to converse with his father, whom he 
wished to convince of having been in the 
wrong, saying : "Dear father, why did you 
so vehemently oppose my becoming a monk, 
and grow angry at it, so that perhaps you are 
not even now quite satisfied w T ith my choice, 
seeing it is such a comfortable, divine state/' 
"Yes," said old John Luther, before all the 
doctors, masters and others, "Have you not 
thought of the 4th commandment, 'Honor 
thy father and thy mother?' In opposition 
to this commandment, you have forsaken me 
and your dear mother in our old age, and 
gone into the monastery against our will, 
when we should, because I have devoted so 
much expense and pains to your studies, have 
had some consolation and aid from you." — 
"But," answered Martin, "in this state I can 
be of more service to you, by prayer and oth- 
er devotions, than if I had chosen some secu- 
lar calling." "0, would to God," replied 
old Luther, "this were so." In general his 
aged father, even at this time, consented but 
reluctantly, and would rather have said : No, 
I am not pleased with it, which he indicated 



— 40 — 

"by saying: "I must be here and eat and 
drink, but would rather be away/' 

Luther afterwards declared : "At these 
words of my father, teaching me to remem- 
ber the commandments, I was so terrified that 
it seemed as though a sword had pierced 
through my soul, and I could never forget 
them. Thus my father would not be satisfied 
with my spiritual calling as long as I was in 
the cloister. But afterwards when, enlight- 
ened by the grace of G-od, I laid aside the 
cowl and took a wife, he received me into his 
favor and I became his dear son again/ ; 

"Once, when he visited me, I again asked 
him why he had always opposed me in my 
monastic life. '0, it always seemed to me/ 
he said, 'that there was nothing in the cleri- 
cal order but dissimulation and knavery/ 
Thus my father became reconciled again, 
from which it is manifest that G-od always 
preserved many honest hearts even under the 
papacy/' 

When Luther had become a priest, his 
brother monks took the Bible away from hhn 
again and gave him the writings of the school- 
men. To render obedience, he read them so 
diligently that he could repeat several almost 
word for word from memory. But chiefly did 
he study the works of Augustine, which he 
also retained most readily. As often, how- 
ever, as he found time and opportunity, he 
hid himself in the library of the monastery 
and faithfully pondered his clear Bible, 



— 41 — 

CHAPTER IX. 

Luther's Conflicts in the Cloister. 

Luther sought to merit the grace of God by 
his own works ; therefore his experience in the 
cloister was "heartily and murderously bitter/ ? 
Day and night he tortured and tormented him- 
self with fasting and prayer, with singing and 
study, with lying on beds of pain, with cold 
and weeping : he designed to take heaven by 
storm. Sometimes he read and wrote so zeal- 
ously that he forgot the horas canonicas — the 
prayers prescribed for certain hours. To sat- 
isfy his conscience and the papal ordinances, 
he would then lock himself in a cell and, 
without eating or drinking, make up what 
had been neglected. In this way he so fretted 
his mind that once he could not sleep for five 
weeks and was near mental derangement. 
Nay, it was not enough for him most punctu- 
ally to observe the rules of his order ; he im- 
posed upon himself additional tasks. Thus 
he could say of himself with truth : "It is 
certain that I was a pious monk, and so scru- 
pulously observed the regulations that I can 
say, if ever a monk entered heaven by monk- 
ery I shall enter also. All my companions 
in the cloister who knew me, will testify to 
this. For if these things had continued I 
would have tortured myself to death with 
watching, praying, reading and other labors/' 

But all his good works brought him no con- 
solation; he was always sad and sorrowful. 



— 42 — 

Therefore he redoubled his zeal and employed 
all the means which the Eomish Church offered 
and recommended to obtain peace. "We did 
everything/' he says, "that was suggested to 
us in the name of the Church, in order that 
we might find comfort and assistance, and not 
despair of divine grace ; but instead of con- 
soling us they led us to the devil and plunged 
us still more deeply into anxiety and terror ; 
for there was nothing that could give us as- 
surance, as they must themselves confess their 
doctrine to be, that a person cannot and should 
not be certain that he is under divine grace. '? 

"I had chosen," he relates, "twenty-one 
saints, read mass every day, and each time 
called upon three of them, so that I comple- 
ted the round in a week ; and especially did I in- 
voke the holy virgin, whose woman's heart I 
thought more easily moved to propitiate the 
Son. The petitions and ejaculations of all, 
including the holy monks, were of this import : 
'Dear mother of God, assist us, and intercede 
for us against the rigorous judgment of thy 
Son, else there is for our souls no comfort, nor 
help, nor counsel/ But with all my masses, 
prayers, watchings, chastity, I could never 
succeed in getting so far that I could say : Now 
I am certain that God is gracious to me, or : 
now I have experienced that my order and 
strict life has helped me and conducts me to 
heaven . ' ' 

In his anxiety he went to confession daily 
and thus wearied his confessors. The papists 



— 43 — 

teach that whoever would receive forgiveness 
of sin must, in auricular confession, specify 
all his sins. But this is impossible, and hence 
Luther never knew whether he had confessed 
all. Confession, therefore, was to him a rack. 
Nor did the absolution comfort him ; for it 
was imparted to him with the condition that 
he must himself atone for his sin by penitence 
and good works. But he did not know how 
much was requisite for such satisfaction. His 
confessors, indeed, imposed upon him certain 
penances, which he most conscientiously per- 
formed ; but he still could not know whether 
God was really gracious to him on this account. 
His confessors pointed him to purgatory as a 
hope for the supply of any deficiencies in his 
penance. But neither did this quiet him ; for 
no mortal could tell how long the expiation in 
purgatory must endure. Some were of the 
opinion that there could be no deliverance 
from it, because seven years penance was re- 
quisite for each mortal sin. Indulgences and 
masses for souls should, indeed, render them 
assistance ; but this, too, was a very uncertain 
consolation, because no one could tell how 
many masses are necessary to redeem a soul 
from purgatory. u O, it is a terrible plague 
in Christendom/' Luther exclaims, "that peo- 
ple are led into uncertainty and left to trust in 
their uncertain works/' 

The torment of soul which he suffered un- 
der this false papistic doctrine, he thus de- 
scribes : "When I became a monk I gave all 



— 44 — 

possible diligence to live uprightly according 
to the rules, was accustomed often to repent 
of my sins in sincerity and to confess all as 
far as possible, and performed the penances 
laid upon me as strictly as I could. And yet 
my conscience could never find rest and assur- 
ance, but always remained in doubt, since I 
thought : in this and this thou hast sinned, 
here thou hast not sufficiently repented of thy 
sins, and there something was forgotten in 
thy confession. Therefore the more I sought 
to support my doubting, weak and troubled 
conscience by human ordinances, the more its 
doubts, and weakness, and trouble increased 
from day to day ; and the more I sought thus to 
observe the human ordinances, the more I trans- 
gressed them. In short, the more sedulously I 
endeavored to become holy through my order, 
the worse I became. For St. Paul declares it 
to be impossible for man to obtain peace of 
conscience by the works of the law ; much 
more is it impossible to obtain it by human 
ordinances, without the promise and Grospel of 
Christ/^ 

Nor did the reception of the Lord's Supper 
afford him any comfort. This sweet and sol- 
acing sacrament also had the papists corrupt- 
ed with false doctrine, and thus they had de- 
prived Christians of all the joy which it was 
designed to give. u For they had taught us," 
he says, "that we must attain a purity in 
which we are free from every particle of daily 
sin, and a dazzling holiness, upon which God 



— 45 — 

can scarcely bear to look. This I could not 
find in myself, and therefore the sacrament 
filled me with terror." "When I was most 
devout I went to the altar with doubts, and 
with doubts I again departed. If I said my 
penitential prayers I doubted ; if I neglected 
to say them I despaired : for we all held the 
delusion that we could not pray, and would 
not be heard, unless we were as pure and sin- 
less as the saints in heaven/ ' 

From this we perceive how the Komish doc- 
trine brought Luther to the most horrible 
despair. By its influence he had lost Christ, 
who was no more regarded as his dear Savior, 
but whom he was taught rather to consider an 
angry, terrible Judge, as they pictured him 
sitting upon the rainbow. He sought to pro- 
pitiate God by his good works, but just be- 
cause he was honest and sincere he saw this to 
be impossible. He followed the papistic doc- 
trine most faithfully until he learned by ex- 
perience that it is false and comfortless — a well 
without water. Accordingly he thus describes 
his condition in the cloister : "The execution- 
er and the devil were in our hearts, and fear, 
trembling, terror and anxiety tormented us 
day and night. In fine, a cloister is a hell, in 
which the devil is abbot and prior, and monks 
and nuns are the lost souls." 

Amid these conflicts Luther must have per- 
ished had not God, through His saints, of 
whom there were some hidden even in the pa- 
pacy, mercifully comforted him. 



— 46 — 
CHAPTER X. 

How Luther was consoled in the Cloister. 

God comforted Luther's bruised heart es- 
pecially through Dr. Staupitz. To him Lu- 
ther often confessed, and complained of his 
trials. Staupitz replied : "I have never ex- 
perienced such conflicts ; but as far as I can 
see and understand, they are more necessary 
for you than eating or drinking/' If he went 
to another, he received no better answer ; no 
confessor knew anything about them. Then 
he thought that no one had any such trials 
but himself, and became as pale as death. — 
Finally Staupitz said to him at the table, 
where he was so sad and dejected : "Why are 
you so sorrowful, brother Martin?" Luther 
replied : "Ah, whither shall I go ?" Stau- 
pitz said : "0, you know not how salutary 
and necessary such trials are for you ; without 
them nothing good would become of you. — 
God does not send them to you in vain. You 
shall see that God purposed to use you for the 
accomplishment of great things." "This," 
Luther says, "I accepted as words of comfort 
and as the voice of the Holy Ghost." 

Once he said to Staupitz : "Why, my dear 
Doctor, God deals so terribly with men ; who 
can serve Him when He lays about Him thus ?' ' 
Staupitz answered : "Dear Sir, learn to think 
differently of God ; if He dealt otherwise, how 
could He subdue stubborn heads ? He must 
restrain the lofty trees that they grow not into 



— 47 — 

the heavens. God strikes to heal, that we, 
who would otherwise be oppressed, may be 
delivered and redeemed." 

He also frequently wrote to Staupitz, and 
once in a letter uttered the complaint : "0 
my sin, sin, sin !" Staupitz made this reply : 
"You would be without sin, and yet have no 
sin in reality. Christ is the forgiveness of 
real sins, such as the murder of parents, open 
blasphemy, contempt of God, adultery, &c. 
These are sins in truth. You must keep a rec- 
ord of real sins, if Christ is to help you, and 
not be engaged in such mummery and puppet- 
ry, making every trifle a sin." 

At another time, when Luther had fallen 
into great temptations, Staupitz comforted him 
with power, saying : "Why, would you be 
only a feigned sinner and have only a feigned 
Savior ? Accustom yourself to think of Jesus 
as a real Savior, and of yourself as an actual 
sinner. God is not engaged in vain show or 
idle jest when he sends His Son into the world 
to die for us." 

"When I was a young man," Luther relates, 
"as I was walking in the procession in priest- 
ly robes at Erfurt, on Corpus Christi day, I 
was so terrified at the Sacrament, which Dr. 
Staupitz carried, that I was all in a perspira- 
tion, and thought I must die of fear. After 
the procession I told Dr. Staupitz of my an* 
guish. He said : 'Your thoughts are not 
Christ ; for Christ does not terrify ; He only 



- 48 - 

consoles/ These words I received joyfully, 
and they gave me great consolation." 

When Luther was once cruelly tortured by 
the doubt whether he was predestined to eter- 
nal life, and told Staupitz of his distress, the 
latter comforted him with the words : "Pre- 
destination is understood and found in the 
wounds of Christ and nowhere else. For it is 
written, 'Hear ye Him/ The Father is too 
highly exalted, therefore He says : 'I will 
give you a way by which you may come to me, 
namely Christ : believe in Him and cling to 
Him, and ye shall in due time know who I 
am/ For God is incomprehensible, and we 
cannot understand and fathom what He is, 
much less what his purposes are ; we cannot 
know Him, nor will He be apprehended with- 
out Christ. If you would dispute about pre- 
destination, begin at the wounds of Christ, 
and all doubtful disputations will at once 
cease. Therefore cling to the word, in which 
God has revealed Himself, and adhere to it 
steadfastly ; in this you have the true way of 
life and salvation, if you only believe it. But 
when we would follow our own thoughts and 
reason we forget God ; then the laudate (praise) 
ceases and the blasphemate (blasphemy) begins, 
as in Christ all treasures are contained, and 
without him none are accessible. Therefore 
impress Christ on your heart, and predestina- 
tion is accomplished and you possess it. For 
God has ordained that His Sons hould suffer, 
not for the just, but for sinners. Whoever be- 



— 49 — 

lieves this, is his dear child. Hence, as re- 
gards this article, we should think thus : God 
is true, and does not lie nor err ; this I know ; 
he has bestowed upon me his only begotten 
Son with all his gifts, has granted me Holy 
Baptism, the sacrament of the true body and 
blood of His Son, with all manner of gifts, 
both temporal and eternal. When I thus re- 
flect upon the great and unspeakable benefits 
which God our heavenly Father, in pure grace 
and mercy, has, for Christ's sake, conferred 
upon me, without any merit, good works or 
worthiness of mine, as His word testifies, and 
adhere to this, predestinanion is sweet and 
consoling, and remains sure and steadfast, es- 
pecially as I know that God Himself speaks to 
me in His word and through His servants." 

Once when the subject of conversation was 
repentance, Staupitz said : "Only that is true 
repentance which flows from love to God and 
His righteousness/' These words penetrated 
into Luther's soul like the sharp arrow of the 
mighty. He searched the Scriptures more 
fully, and experienced the sweet joy of finding 
that all the passages of Scripture harmonized 
with the proposition. Afterwards nothing 
had a more pleasing sound than the word re- 
pentance, which before was the most bitter. 

There were also several others who com- 
forted him in his trials. Thus his confessor 
once said to him, when he had confessed his 
sins: " You are a simpleton ; God is not an- 
gry with yor, but you are angry with Him." 
4* 



— 50 — 

Lutlier subsequently called these "precious, 
great and glorious words, which were spoken 
before this Gospel light had dawned/ ' 

At one time he complained with tears to 
his teacher of his conflicts, when he received 
the reply : "What are you doing, my son? 
Do you not know that our Lord Himself has 
commanded us to hope and believe ?" Luther 
says : "This one word 'commanded' aiForded 
me the consolation afterwards to know that we 
should and must believe the absolution and 
forgiveness of sin, which I had often heard be- 
fore, but which, in my foolish thoughts, I had 
supposed did not concern me and were not 
to be believed by me, hearing them as vain 
words." 

Especially didLuther frequently mention with 
esteem and gratitude an old monastic brother, 
who referred him to the words in the Apostles' 
Creed : "I believe in the remission of sins." 
This article he thus explained : "It is not 
enough for you to believe in general that God 
forgives sins, but you must believe that He 
forgives you, you, you. For we are saved by 
grace through faith. ' ' By these words Luther 
was not only strengthened, but his attention 
was also directed to the truth that we are jus- 
tified through faith. Upon this he read many 
commentaries, but by frequent conversations 
with the old brother and by the consolation 
which he experienced he soon perceived what 
sorry helps were the commentaries then in 
vogue. He therefore read and compared, with 



— 51 — 

daily prayer, the declarations and example of 
the prophets and apostles upon the subject, 
and thus the light became gradually brighter 
in his soul. In the writings of Augustine, 
also, he found many clear sentences which con- 
firmed him in this doctrine concerning faith 
and in the consolation which it brought to 
his heart. 



CHAPTER XL 

Luther is called to Wittenberg. 

In the year 1502 the Elector Frederick of 
Saxony had, through Dr. Martin Mellerstadt 
and Dr. John Staupitz, established the uni- 
versity of Wittenberg. Staupitz desired to 
elevate the study of theology in the new uni- 
versity ; and because he had observed in broth- 
er Martin great talents and earnest piety, he 
brought him, in the year 1508, to the convent 
at Wittenberg. His departure from Erfurt 
took place in such haste that scarcely his near- 
est friends were aware of it. 

In Wittenberg he was at first required to 
teach the Dialectics and Physics of Aristotle. 
But the chair of philosophy was distasteful to 
him, and he would therefore from the begin- 
ning, as he wrote to his friend John Braun, 
gladly have exchanged it for that of theology, 
especially of the theology which searches for 
"the kernel of the nut, the heart of the wheat, 
and the marrow of the bones. But/' he adds, 



— 52 — 

"God is good, and man often, nay, always, 
errs in his judgment. He is our God ; may 
He Himself lead us according to His kindness 
eternally." 

On the 9th of March, 1509, in his 26th year, 
Luther became bachelor of theology with the 
designation "adbiblia" i. e., for the inter- 
pretation of the Bible. He now devoted him- 
self entirely to the study of the Scriptures, 
and began to dispute against the principles of 
the sophists, which were then everywhere in 
vogue, and to inquire into the true and cer- 
tain ground of our salvation. Therefore he 
based his lectures exclusively upon the Holy 
Scriptures, and considered these more exalted, 
more thorough, and more certain than all soph- 
istry and scholastic theology. By this course 
he attracted so much attention that even then 
already intelligent men were astonished at it. 
The celebrated Mellerstadt, who was then 
rector of the university, often said of him : 
"This monk will confound all the doctors, in- 
troduce a new doctrine, and reform the Bom- 
ish Church ; for he devotes himself to the 
writings of the prophets and apostles, and 
takes his position uqon the word of Jesus 
Christ, which no one is able to refute or over- 
throw with philosophy or sophistry, with the 
weapons of the Albertists or Thomists, or with 
all the Tartaretus." 

Staupitz also strongly urgedLuther to engage 
in preaching. But as it seemed to the latter 
no slight matter to speak in God's stead to the 



— 53 — 

people, lie was not easily persuaded. He 
found fifteen pretexts for declining the call to 
preach. At last he said : "Doctor, you will 
deprive me of my life ; I shall not hold out 
three months/' To this Staupitz replied: 
"Well, in God's name be it so ; what then? 
Our Lord has great works in hand and needs 
men of wisdom on high also/' He was thus 
compelled to yield, and to preach to the breth- 
ren in the hall of the convent, afterwards pub- 
licly to the congregation. 

The little church in which Luther at first 
preached, Myconius thus describes: "In the 
new Augustine convent at Wittenberg, the 
foundation of a Church had been laid, but had 
been brought no further than to a level with 
the ground. In the middle of the square an 
old wooden chapel, thirty feet long and twenty 
wide, was standing yet, which was daubed 
with clay, very much dilapidated, and prop- 
ped up on all sides. It had an old sooty little 
gallery, upon which twenty persons could 
stand in an emergency. At the wall towards 
the South was an old pulpit of rough boards, 
elevated about three feet above the floor. In 
short, it looked in all respects like the stable 
at Bethlehem in which Christ was born, as 
this is usually represented by the painters. 
In this poor and wretched chapel it pleased 
God that His holy Gospel and the dear child 
Jesus should be born anew, and that all the 
world should see how sweet and lovely they 
are, and what comfort and salvation they be- 



— 54 — 

stow. There were thousands of cathedrals 
and splendid churches, but God did not choose 
them for the purpose. But his chapel soon 
became too small and Luther was ordered to 
preach in the parish church : thus the child 
Jesus was brought into the temple/' 

A ray of light had then already penetrated 
the soul of Luther, which groped in the dark- 
ness of the papacy. God had led him to the 
Holy Scriptures and he chose them as his load- 
star ; he felt that they alone could give him 
the truth and peace which he sought. But 
they were yet a sealed book to him, and there- 
fore he still clung to Rome. According to the 
purpose of God, however, the Sun of Right- 
eousness should again rise in his view, and 
through him shine upon the nations who lan- 
guished in the papistic shadow of death. The 
way in which God led him to the knowledge 
of the truth was wonderful. Luther had taken 
up the epistle to the Romans to explain it. — 
When he came to the passage from the prophet 
Habakkuk: "The just shall live by faith/' 
this sentence, by the power of God, made such 
a deep impression upon his mind that, what- 
ever he was engaged in, he thought he heard 
the words : "The just shall live by faith." 
He was conscious that his soul was deeply 
moved, but he knew not how to still the com- 
motion. 

At the same time God in His wisdom so di- 
rected him that he, by his own observation, 
became acquainted with the seat of the papacy. 



— 55 — 
CHAPTER XII. 

Luther's Pilgrimage to Rome. 

In 1510 Luther was sent, on business per- 
taining to the convent, in company with a 
monastic brother, to Rome. He was the more 
willing to undertake the journey as he hoped, 
by a visit to the holy places, as they were 
called 3 to find rest and comfort for his con- 
science. But the further he proceeded on his 
way, the more frequently and the more vehe- 
mently he thought the words were sung in 
his ears : "The just shall live by faith." 

Before Luther had reached the Appenines 
he chanced to meet several monks who ate meat 
on Friday. He admonished them, in kind and 
courteous words, entreating them to remember 
that the pope had forbidden the eating of meat. 
The monks were not a little alarmed at these 
words, fearing that, if the matter should be- 
come known, they would incur danger and 
public disgrace. Therefore they agreed to 
put Luther out of the way. But God so or- 
dered it that the porter notified him of this 
bloody intent, and he accordingly made good 
his escape in the best way that he could. At 
another time, when he and his companion had 
slept the whole night with the windows open, 
they were so affected by the unhealthy night- 
air that they could proceed only a mile on the 
following day. Their great thirst placed them 
in constant temptation to drink water, which 
in that region is fatal. Finally they revived 



— 56 — 

and refreshed themselves with two pomegran- 
ates, by which Grod preserved their lives. 

Of his journey he relates : "In Lombardy 
on the Po, there is a very wealthy cloister of 
the Benedictine order, which has an annual 
income of 36.000 ducats. There such luxury 
and voluptuousness prevails that 12.000 du- 
cats are appropriated to banquets, 12.000 to 
the buildings, and the remaining third to the 
convent and the brethren. I was in the 
cloister and was treated sumptuously/' 

When Luther first perceived the city of 
Home he fell upon his knees, lifted up his 
hands and exclaimed : "Holy Rome, I salute 
thee ! thrice holy because of the blood of the 
martyrs which flowed in thee." There he 
sought in deep devotion to satisfy his soul. — 
"In Rome/' he relates, "I also was a crazy 
saint, ran through every church and grot, and 
believed every lie that left its stench in the 
city. I embraced the opportunity also of 
reading masses there, and was then very 
sorry that my father and mother were living 
yet, as I would have been glad to redeem them 
from Purgatory by masses and other precious 
w r orks and prayers. " But even when he read 
mass with the most devout feeling, he expe- 
rienced in his heart all the more sensibly the 
power of the words : "The just shall live by 
faith/ ' There was at the Church of St Peter's 
a flight of stairs called Pilate's Staircase, 
which the papists represented as having been 
transported thither from the judgment hall in 



— 57 — 

Jerusalem. The pope had promised plenary 
indulgence to those who should ascend these 
stairs on their knees. Luther undertook this 
work with the purpose of propitiating God, 
whom he thought highly offended, and of ex- 
piating his sins, looking upon this as the best 
and the last means to find comfort. But 
whilst he crept up the stairs he felt as though 
a voice of thunder cried to him in terrible 
tones: "The just shall live by faith. " This 
deprived him, indeed, of all the comfort which 
he had expected to obtain there by his own 
works and efforts, but rendered him all the 
more attentive to the power of the words, 
which should be the means of showing him 
the true way to heaven. 

Home was lauded at that time as the "foun- 
tain of righteousness ;" but Luther learned 
to know it differently. He relates : "I was at 
Rome, though not long, — read many masses 
there, and also saw others engaged in them, 
so that I tremble when I think of it. There, 
among other vile, coarse buffooneries I heard 
courtesans boast at the table, and making 
merry over the circumstance, that some in say- 
ing mass had used the words : Pants es,panis 
manebis, vinum es, vinum manebis y that is : 
bread thou art and bread thou shalt remain, 
wine thou art and wine thou shalt remain, 
and that they had thus elevated the host. I 
was a young monk who was truly sincere and 
pious, and such things pained me. What 
should I think ? What other thoughts than 



— 58 — 

these should occur to me : Is it possible that 
here in Kome such mockery is indulged in 
openly at the table ? how if all of them, the 
pope, cardinals, courtesans and all, say mass 
thus ? How nicely then would I have been 
deceived, who heard them say so many masses. 
I was quite disgusted too at the hustling levi- 
ty with which, helter skelter, they performed 
the mass, as if it were a puppet-show ; for be- 
fore I had reached the Gospel the priest at my 
side had finished his mass and cried to me : 
'Fratello, passa, passa, quick, quick, send her 
son home to our Lady speedily/ 7 

He also learned in Eome how shamefully be- 
lievers were there deceived with spurious relics. 
He testifies : "This I can say confidently, 
from what I saw and heard at Rome, that it is 
not known in that city where the remains of 
St. Paul or St. Peter lie, or whether they lie 
there at all. The pope and the cardinals are 
well aware that they do not know it. Yet on 
the day of St. Peter and Paul they set up two 
heads, pretend that they are the real heads of 
these apostles, and lead the common people to 
believe it, who crowd around them in devout 
wonder ; but the pope and the cardinals, with 
their attendants, know right well that they 
are two wooden heads, carved and painted. 
Thus they deceive also with their veronicas, 
pretending that our Lord's face is impressed 
upon the handkerchief, while it is nothing but 
a little, square, black board, with a veil hang- 
ing over it, before which hangs a curtain 



— 59 — 

that is drawn when the Veronica is shown, so 
that the people see nothing more than a screen 
before a black board, and this they call show- 
ing and seeing the Veronica, with which 
shameless lie great indulgences are offered and 
great devotion is displayed." 

In Italy Luther found priests of the gross- 
est ignorance. To the question : how many 
sacraments are there ? they answered : three, 
the sprinkling brush, the censer and the cross. 
He says of them : "The greater their honors 
and dignities, the more wantonly they sin, so 
that it has long since become a proverb : the 
nearer Home, the worse Christian." In gen- 
eral he is unable to find words to describe the 
horrible abominations which he saw in Eome. 
"Not the least tittle of divine order is observed 
at Eome, nay, its observance is ridiculed as 
folly. All evil examples of spiritual and secu- 
lar knavery flow into the world from Rome as 
from a sea of wickedness. No one believes 
what villany and what horrible sins and vices 
are practiced there ; to be convinced of it a 
person must see and hear and experience it for 
himself." 

"At Eome, passing down a wide street 
which leads to St. Peter's^ I sawastone statue 
representing a pope under the figure of a wo- 
man, holding a sceptre, clothed in the papal 
mantle, and bearing a child in her arms. No 
pope passes through this street, as he must 
not behold this statue. It is a young woman 
of Mayence, who was brought by a cardinal to 



— 60 — 

England in the character of a boy, and finally 
conducted to Kome. There she was elected 
pope by the cardinals, but her shame was ex- 
posed, as she was publicly delivered of a child 
in that street. 

"I must here relate an occurrence showing 
what opinions we should form of the holy 
scoundrels and murderers of the Komish see. 
At Eome I was told the following : 'About 
seven German miles this side of the city there 
is a village called Eoncilion. In the time of 
Paul I. there was an official of the pope in 
that place who saw the scandalous, satanic 
proceedings of the pope and his parasites at 
Kome, and withheld from him the annual dues 
from his office. The pope summoned him, 
but he refused to appear. All the commands 
of the pope he despised. At length the pope 
excommunicated him, but he remained indiffer- 
ent. Then the pope had the bells tolled, and, 
with the pulpit lights extinguished, had him 
anathematized according to custom, but he 
concerned himself nothing about it. Finally, 
because such obstinate disobedience of the 
pope passes for heresy according to Romish 
law, he had the official's picture painted on 
paper, with many devils about his head and 
on either side, and had this brought before the 
court, accused, and condemned to the stake as 
a heretic, and instantly the paper was hurried 
to the fire and burned. The official then also 
had the pope painted in the midst of his car- 
dinals, all full of devils over head and round 



— 61 — 

about, convened a court, and had the pope and 
cardinals charged with being the vilest knaves 
on earth, who did incalculable injury to the 
poor people, who, when their chief dies, place 
at their head the wickedest person to be found 
among thern, and who are well worthy of hell- 
fire ; and many witnesses were brought to 
prove this ; upon which the judge, the official 
and the plaintiffs cried that they should be 
burned, and instantly, in the name of a thou- 
sand devils, they hurried the pope and cardi- 
nals away to the fire ; till at last the pope si- 
lenced him by force. ! This story may be laugh- 
able, but it shows a t errible evil, how the pope 
causes great scandal by his horrible, devilish 
wickedness at Kome, and how the people who 
see it are offended and become epicurean like 
themselves. For nearly all who return from 
Eome bring a papistic conscience with them, 
that is an epicurean faith, as it is certain that 
the pope and cardinals with their whole gang 
of rogues believe nothing, and only laugh 
when they hear faith mentioned. I myself 
heard it said publicly on the streets in Rome, 
that if there is a hell Rome is built over it, 
that is, next to the devils themselves there is 
not a more depraved crew than the pope and 
his toadies/' 

Thus Luther was called to become himself 
thoroughly acquainted with Rome, in order 
that, in due time, he might be the better qual- 
ified to bear testimony against it. Therefore 
he says himself : "I would not for a thousand 



— 62 — 

florins have missed seeing Rome, for then I 
would always fear that I might do injustice to 
the pope ; but we speak that which we have 
seen/' 

When he had accomplished his mission in 
Eome he returned home poor and dejected. 
He had been undeceived. He had expected to 
find holiness and consolation in Rome, and he 
found diabolical wickedness instead. In Bo- 
logne he was attacked by such a severe pain 
in his head and ringing in his ears that he 
thought his end was approaching, and he fell 
into a profound melancholy. Then suddenly 
the words again presented themselves to his 
soul : "The just shall live by faith," but now 
with a radiance which they had not before. 
He was revived and wonderfully refreshed as 
if by a ray of heavenly light. Never before, 
frequently and zealously as he had studied the 
epistle to the Romans, had he so clearly and 
forcibly understood the meaning of these 
words. Now it was written in his soul, with 
divine clearness and firmness, that the right- 
eousness so often mentioned by the apostle is 
the righteousness of Christ, which God gra- 
ciously imputes to faith. When he had re- 
turned to Wittenberg he examined further 
into the matter with unremitting diligence, 
and had the unutterable joy to find this truth 
everywhere confirmed. "Then," he writes, 
"the whole Scriptures were opened to me, and 
also heaven itself. Immediately I felt as if 
born anew, as if I had found the open gate of 



— 63 — 

paradise. Henceforward, also, I saw the be- 
loved Holy Scriptures with other eyes. There- 
fore I compared all the passages I could re- 
member, and found it to be all the more cer- 
tain that the righteousness of God signifies the 
righteousness which He gives us, because this 
accords Avith the scriptural mode of speaking, 
e. g., the work of God means the work which 
He performs in us, the power of God means 
the power which he gives us, the wisdom of 
God means the wisdom which he bestows up- 
on us, and so with God's strength, God's sal- 
vation, God's glory, &c. As I had previously 
with all my heart detested the words, 'right- 
eousness of God/ I now began to value and 
love them as the sweetest and most consoling 
words in the Bible. In very truth this pas- 
sage of St. Paul was now to me the very gate 
of paradise." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Luther becomes Doctor of the Holy Scrip- 
tures. 

In the year 1512 Staupitz, Luther s superior, 
and the whole cloister, resolved that brother 
Martin should be created Doctor of the Holy 
Scriptures, and this resolution was communi- 
cated to him under a tree in the cloister at 
Wittenberg. But when Luther excused him- 
self on the ground that he was a feeble and 
sickly brother who had not long to live, and 



— 64 — 

begged that one better qualified and with bet- 
ter health might be selected, Staupitz answered 
jestingly : "It seems that our Grod will soon 
have much to do in heaven and upon earth, 
therefore He will need many industrious doc- 
tors to perform the work. Whether you live 
or die God will need you in His council. — 
Therefore accept what your convent imposes, 
as you are bound by your profession to obey it 
and me. As regards the expenses, our gra- 
cious Elector, Duke Frederick, will defray 
them from his treasury for the benefit of this 
university and cloister/' This was also done, 
as the Elector had heard Luther preach and 
had admired his spirit, the energy of his 
speech, and the useful doctrines which he pro- 
claimed. 

Accordingly on the 18th of October, 1512, at 
one o'clock in the afternoon, Luther was, in 
the presence of many members of the Univer- 
sity and other reverend gentlemen, declared a 
licentiate of Sacred Theology by Dr. Andrew 
Boden stein Carlstadt, at that time Dean and 
Archdeacon of the Church of All Saints. On 
the following day, after the fathers and guests, 
summoned by the great bell, had assembled as 
before, he was honored by Dr Carlstadt with 
the title of Doctor of Sacred Theology. By 
this regular and public vocation and by the 
solemn oath which he had made to G-od, the 
Holy Scriptures, and the University at Wit- 
tenberg, Luther often consoled himself in his 
great troubles and conflicts, when Satan and 



— 65 — 

the world would seek to terrify him with the 
question who had ordered him to do this, and 
how he would answer for making such a dis- 
turbance in all Christendom. He could joy- 
ously testify : "I, Doctor Martin Luther , was 
called and forced to become a doctor from 
mere obedience, without any choice of mine. 
I was constrained to accept the doctorate and 
to swear allegiance to my beloved Holy Scrip- 
tures, and to vow that I would preach them 
faithfully and purely. While doing this, Po- 
pery obstructed my path and desired to stop 
me ; but you see what has happened to it, and 
worse still will befall it ; it shall not hinder 
me." 

As in the same year the council called him 
to be preacher, he studied the Scriptures more 
zealously and more earnestly than ever. In 
order to understand them more thoroughly he 
diligently studied the Hebrew language, in 
which the Old Testament was originally writ- 
ten, and the Greek, which is the original lan- 
guage of the New Testament. In his lectures 
he explained the Epistle to the Eomans and 
the Psalms so clearly and attractively, that all 
pious and intelligent Christians could not 
otherwise than believe a beautiful and lovely 
light to have risen upon them after the gloom 
of the long night ; for he pointed out the dif- 
ference between the Law and the Gospel, and 
refuted the terrible error, which was then 
taught in all the schools and churches, as it 
had been taught in our Lord's time by all the 
5* 



— 66 — 

scribes and pharisees, that man is able to mer- 
it forgiveness of sins by his own good works 
and to become just before God by external pir 
ety and social integrity. He again directed 
the hearts of men to the Son of God, pointed, 
like John the Baptist, to the Lamb of God 
who has fully discharged all our obligations 
and taken away our sins, and taught that our 
sins are forgiven for Christ's sake alone, with- 
out any merit of ours, which blessing is to be 
appropriated by a living faith and retained un- 
til death. At the same time he also wrote 
many consolatory and instructive letters to 
troubled consciences, among which is the fol- 
lowing to George Spenlein, a beloved brother 
in the cloister of Memmingen : 

"I should like to know the state of your 
soul. Is it not at last tired of its own right- 
eousness and desirous to refresh itself in the 
righteousness of Christ and to trust in that ? 
In our days many are attacked by presump- 
tuous madness, and especially those who labor 
with all their might to become righteous. — 
They do not understand the righteousness of 
God which is given to us abundantly and free- 
ly in Christ, and seek in their own power to 
do good, until they can have joyfulness to ap- 
pear before God as persons who are adorned 
with good works and merits, which is impos- 
sible. When you were with us you entertained 
this opinion, or rather error, and so did I, and 
I am yet struggling against it and have not 
entirely overcome it. Therefore, my dear 



— 67 — 

brother, learn to know Christ and Him cruci- 
fied ; learn to sing praises to Him and, des- 
pairing of yourself, to say : Thou my Lord 
Jesus, art my righteousness, and I am Thy 
sin. Thou hast assumed what was mine and 
given me what was Thine/' 

Thus the glorious light of the Gospel arose 
again through Martin Luther ; for he showed 
from the word of G-od what man must do to be 
saved, and treated especially of repentance, of 
forgiveness of sin, of faith, and of the true 
consolation of the cross. All pious hearts 
were moved by the sweetness of this doctrine, 
and the learned were glad that Christ and the 
prophets and apostles were led forth, as it 
were, from the darkness and dust in which they 
had lain. At the same time Luther contended 
against the Aristotelian philosophy, by the aid 
of which the papists sought to support their 
doctrines, and proved that the Christian faith, 
and how to lead a Christian life and die a hap- 
py death, must be learned from the Scriptures, 
and not from the heathen Aristotle. Besides 
this he led a godly, blameless life. His con- 
versation corresponded with his teaching, so 
that his sincerity was manifest. Neither did 
he make rash changes in the existing Church 
usages, but was rather a rigid preserver of 
order. By these means he gained the affec- 
tions of his hearers and a high reputation. 

The beautiful sciences and liberal arts had at 
that time received a new impulse through 
John Eeuchlin and Erasmus. Whilst Luther 



— 68 — 

gradually obtained clearer perceptions of the 
truth, his friends, Staupitz, Spalatin and oth- 
ers, sought to advance these sciences in Witten- 
berg and advocated their claims before the 
Elector. They soon flourished there in their 
beauty, and the ancient languages especially 
were studied diligently, which, conjoined with 
fervent prayer, the holy cross, and earnest 
meditation, are the best interpreters of the di- 
vine word. And because a better method of 
instruction was introduced by Luther, many 
clear and gifted minds became disgusted with 
the barbarous and scholastic doctrine of the 
monks and directed their attention to the Gos- 
pel. Thus Luther was enabled, on the 17th 
of May, 1517, to report to John Lange : "Our 
theology and St. Augustine, by the help of 
G-od, prosper and prevail in our university. 
Aristotle is gradually descending from his 
throne and will soon fall, perhaps forever. — 
The lectures on the Sententiaries have fallen 
into great contempt, and no one can expect 
hearers unless he lecture upon this theology, 
that is upon the Bible, St. Augustine, or some 
other true Church father." 

In 1516 the plague prevailed in Wittenberg 
and John Lange had advised Luther to flee. 
He answered, "Whither shall I go ? I hope 
the world will not crumble to ruin if brother 
Martin leave it. When the pestilence increases 
I will scatter the brethren in all directions, 
but I am placed here and dare not flee. I do 
not say this because I have no fear of death, 



— 69 — 

for I am not the apostle Paul, but only his in- 
terpreter ; nevertheless I hope that God will 
deliver me from all my fears," 

In 1517 Luther was in Dresden and on the 
25th of July preached before the duke. In 
this sermon he said that no one is permitted 
to cast away the hope of salvation, inasmuch 
as those who attentively hear the word of 
God are the true disciples of Christ and are 
elected and appointed to eternal life. He 
dwelt upon this point and showed that the 
doctrine of election, if it have its starting 
point in Christ, has a peculiar power to ex- 
pel the fear which drives the soul, in the feel- 
ing of its unworthiness, away from God, in 
whom it should seek refuge. At table the 
duke asked the governess, Barbara of Sala, how 
she liked the sermon, and he received the an- 
swer : "If I could hear another such sermon 
I could die in far greater peace. ' ' This offend- 
ed the duke who said, in his papistic blindness, 
that he would give a great deal if he had not 
heard such a sermon, the tendency of which 
is to render people presumptuous. The desire 
of Barbara , however, was fulfilled, for in the 
course of a month she was taken ill and joy- 
fully departed from this world. Luther never 
visited Dresden afterwards. 

Commissioned by Staupitz, Luther in 1516 
and 1517 visited forty Augustine cloisters in 
Misnia and Thuringia. He performed the dif- 
ficult task with great fidelity, establishing 
schools and admonishing the monks diligently 



— 70 — 

to read the Bible and to lead a holy, peacahle 
and sober life. This visitation afforded him 
opportunities to become still better acquainted 
with the corruption prevalent in the cloisters, 
and God thus continued to prepare him for the 
great work of the Reformation. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Tetzei/s Scandalous Indulgence Traffic. 

At this time the occupant of the papal 
throne was Leo X., an ungodly man, who was 
given to all vice and licentiousness and who 
believed nothing. By his debauchery and in- 
temperance he had become well-nigh blind. 
When cardinal Bembo once referred him to the 
Holy Scriptures on some point, he uttered the 
shocking words : "Ah, what money has the 
fable about Christ ever brought us ?" Luther 
relates of him : "When he wished to amuse 
himself and provoke merriment for pastime, 
he would call two clowns, who disputed be- 
fore his table on the immortality of the soul, 
the one affirming, the other denying it. — ■ 
When, at the close of the debate, they both 
appealed to the pope's decision, the most holy 
father, by his holy Romish spirit, gave this 
judgment, addressing the advocate of the af- 
firmative : Although you have adduced good 
reasons, I shall concur with him who holds 
that we die like other brutes ; for your view 
produces melancholy and sadness, while the 
other generates gayety and good spirits.' ' 



— 71 — 

But to carry out his revelry and lascivious- 
ness the pope needed a great deal of money. 
To obtain this he proclaimed, ostensibly for 
1 the purpose of continuing the work upon the 
splendid Church of St. Peter, a general indul- 
gence, and commissioned the Elector Albert of 
Mayence, who was also Archbishop, to have 
this indulgence preached in Germany. Al- 
bert chose for this work the Dominican monk 
John Tetzel, a shameless creature whom, on ac- 
count of adultery, the Emperor Maximilian 
had sentenced atlnspruck to be put into a sack 
and drowned. His wages were eighty ducats 
a month for himself and ten for his servants, 
together with clothing, travelling expenses, 
and provender for three horses. 

These indulgences brought immense sums 
of money into the pope's coffers. For the lie 
was imposed upon the poor people that whoev- 
er purchased a letter of indulgence not only re- 
ceived forgiveness of sins, but also became ex- 
empt from all punishment in this life and in 
purgatory. Hence all classes flocked to the 
sale; even the poorest spinsters, widows and 
beggars brought their last piece of money to 
buy indulgences for the purpose of delivering 
the souls of their friends from purgatory, so 
that, if the traffic had not been stopped, Ger- 
many would have been left without a penny. 
And still the pope never had enough, lavish- 
ing it not upon St. Peter's but upon his own 
pride and lewdness. The matter was carried 
to such extremes that the emperors, kings, 



— 72 — 

princes and lords of the holy empire, as well 
as others, became displeased, complained of it 
at several diets, and desired a reformation. — 
But no one knew any remedy ; the earthly 
god at Rome was too powerful in the Church 
and in the hearts of men, and his anathema 
was too much feared to admit of any hope. 

As the papal indulgence was so highly prized, 
the indulgence dealer Tetzel was everywhere 
received with the greatest pomp. When he 
entered a town the papal bull was borne be- 
fore him upon velvet or gilt cloth, and all the 
priests, monks, council, school-teachers, pu- 
pils, men, women and virgins went out in pro- 
cession, with banners, tapers and songs, to 
meet him. All the bells were tolled and the 
organ played, and he was conducted into the 
church, in the middle of which a red cross 
was set up, decorated with the pope's arms ; in 
short, God Himself could not have been re- 
ceived with more splendor. 

The impudence with which John Tetzel car- 
ried on the indulgence traffic was unprecedent- 
ed. In St. Annaberg he said that if they 
would speedily buy indulgences all the moun- 
tains around the place would become pure sil- 
ver. In Magdeburg he refused to absolve a 
rich lady until she had paid a hundred florins. 
In Leipzig he enticed the people living in the 
surrounding country by making appointments 
for his indulgence sermons on Sundays and oth- 
er holidays, and instituting games in connection 
with them, such as shooting matches, pole 



— 73 — 

climbing, playing at ten pins for an ox, or 
dice, or ginger cake, &c. His assistant, Bar- 
tholomew Rauch, even surpasssed him. He 
said that he could see the blood of Christ flow 
graciously from the holy red cross upon which 
hung the pope's arms, and that such great 
grace had not been bestowed since the time 
when Jesus suffered. He spoke of the mira- 
cles which the cross performed, and excom- 
municated those who said aught against it. — 
Tetzel had a regular tariff of sins. Conjuring 
he forgave for two ducats, polygamy was 
charged six, murder eight, sacrilege and per- 
jury nine. "With one groat," he said, "you 
can release the soul of your father from purga- 
tory ; and are you so ungrateful as not to wish 
the deliverance of your father from torture? 
If you had but one coat you must be moved 
instantly to take it off and sell it, to secure 
such grace." 

Tetzel threatened that he would have the 
heads torn off of those who would speak 
against indulgences, and would thus cast them 
as heresiarchs into hell. But he was once de- 
ceived. When he had gathered a large sum 
of money in Leipzig, a nobleman came to him 
and asked him whether he could forgive the 
sin that he designed to commit ; if he could he 
would give him ten dollars. Tetzel at first 
declined, and excused himself by saying it 
was a very important matter ; but still he 
averred that the pope had given him perfect 
authority to do it, and if the applicant would 



— 74 — 

give him thirty dollars he would grant him 
the indulgence desired. The nobleman paid 
this sum, and when Tetzel soon afterwards left 
Leipzig he lay in wait for him, robbed him of 
his money, and then told him that this was 
the sin for which he had purchased indulgence. 
Tetzel brought complaint against the noble- 
man, but he was only ridiculed for his levity, 
and nothing was done. 

To show with what diabolical cunning the 
deceiver belied the poor people, and cheated 
them out of their money, we add the follow- 
ing incident. After he had offered his indulg- 
ences for sale many days at Zwickau and was 
prepared to leave the place, the chaplains and 
altarists said to him: "Sir, you are about to 
depart and we have not enjoyed your indulg- 
ences ; we would be glad if you would give 
something for our benefit, that we might be in 
good spirits on the matter." Tetzel replied 
that the indulgence money was all packed up, 
but still he would grant their request. On 
the following day he ordered the great bell to 
be tolled, upon which the people flocked to the 
church in crowds. He then appeared and told 
them that he had designed to leave that morn- 
ing, but in the past night a poor soul had 
moaned so pitifully in the church-yard and 
cried for help, that it might be delivered from 
its terrible suffering that he could not help re- 
maining this day. He would now say mass 
for the soul, and they should in the meantime 
bring their offerings, that the poor soul might 



— 75 — 

be released from torture. Whoever refused 
this would prove that he had no sympathy 
with the poor soul, nay he must himself be 
immersed in the sin for which the poor soul is 
suffering ; if it be a man he must be an adulter- 
er, if it be a woman she must be an adulteress. 
That they might be assured that the necessity 
is great, he would himself make an offering. 
Thus he was the first to contribute money, and 
after this there was such a zeal in offering con- 
tributions that the people borrowed money of 
each other in the church for the purpose ; for 
no one wished to be considered an adulterer or 
adulteress. This money he then gave for the 
benefit of the clergy, and had a gay time 
with them afterwards ; for the indulgence 
venders were accustomed publicly to revel in 
the taverns, and to squander their share of 
the money in dissipation and debauchery. 

In the year 1516 Tetzel finally came also to 
Juterbock, in the vicinity of Wittenberg. It 
is incredible what this shameless man was em- 
boldened to pretend and to preach. The pope, 
he said, has more power than all the apostles, 
than all the angels and saints, yea, than the 
virgin Mary herself, for these are all subject to 
Christ, but the pope is equal with Him. Nay, 
since the ascension Christ no longer governs 
the Church, but has committed the government 
to the pope as his vicegerent. The red cross 
of indulgence, and the pope's arms hanging 
on it, should be revered and worshipped as the 
most holy object. The indulgence renders 



— 76 — 

those who purchase it purer than BajJtism, 
nay, purer than Adam was in the state of in- 
nocence in paradise. 

"At that time/' Luther relates, "I was 
preacher here in the cloister, and a young doc- 
tor fresh from the forge, ardent and joyous in 
the Holy Scriptures. When people thronged 
from Wittenberg to Juterbock and Zerbst to 
obtain indulgences and I, as truly as my Lord 
Christ has redeemed me, did not know what 
indulgence was, I commenced preaching with 
mildness, that something better could be done, 
something more sure, than preaching indul- 
gences. I had preached before against indul- 
gences in the castle, and had gained little fa- 
vor at the hands of duke Frederick, who dear- 
ly loved his foundation/ ' which had plenary 
indulgence. Luther advised his hearers rath- 
er to give alms to the poor, according to our 
Lord's command, than to purchase such uncer- 
tain grace. He told them that he who repents, 
receives forgiveness of sins, which Christ has 
secured by His own sacrifice and blood, and 
offers and bestows by grace freely and without 
money. 

But Luther with horror discovered, in the 
confessional, the terrible consequences of the 
indulgence traffic. The number of his con- 
fessors became continually less, and those 
who came to him declared defiantly that 
they would not refrain from adultery, forni- 
cation, usury and similar sins. As they re- 
fused to promise repentance and amendment, 



- 77 — 

Lather refused to absolve them. Then they 
appealed to their letters of indulgence. To 
these Luther paid no regard, but admonished 
them in the words of our Lord, Luke xiii, 3 : 
"Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise per- 
ish." Therefore they returned to Tetzel and 
told him that this Augustinian monk despised 
their letters of indulgence. Tetzel became en- 
raged at this, raved, railed and cursed 
fearfully from the pulpit, and threatened ven- 
geance upon the heretics. To strike terror of 
his power into the souls of all, he several 
times had a fire kindled in the market place, 
thus indicating that he had authority from the 
pope to burn the heretics, who should oppose 
the most holy pope and his most holy indulg- 
ence. 

In the meantime it was reported to Luther 
that Tetzel had preached the following horri- 
ble doctrines : The red cross of indulgences 
with the pope's arms, erected in the church, is 
as efficacious as the cross of Christ ; he would 
not exchange his power for that of St. Peter, 
for he had saved more souls by his indulgences 
than Peter by his sermons ; as soon as the 
money, paid for the deliverance of a soul from 
purgatory, rings in the box, the soul leaps up 
to heaven ; the grace of indulgence is the 
grace by which man is reconciled to G-od ; con- 
trition, sorrow and repentance on account of 
sin is not necessary, if a letter of indulgence is 
purchased. In general, Tetzel sought to sur- 
pass himself in Juterbock. Among other 



— 78 — 

things he said on the pulpit that on Good Fri- 
day he saw the soul of citizen G-eserick flying 
to heaven. 

"At that time/' Luther tells us, "I did not 
know for whom the money was intended. — 
But a book was published with the arms of 
the Bishop of Magdeburg, in which the ques- 
tors were commanded to preach these doctrines. 
From this it appeared that Albert had hired 
this Tetzel because he was a great brawler; 
for he had been elected Bishop of Mayence un- 
der the condition that he should purchase the 
pallium at Kome from his own means. There 
had, within a short period, been three bishops 
elected at Mayence, Barthold, James and Uri- 
el having died in quick succession, and prob- 
ably the burden of purchasing the pallium 
became too heavy for the diocese, as it cost 
26,000 florins, some say 30,000; for at such 
an exorbitant price the most holy father at 
Kome can sell flaxen thread, which otherwise 
is scarcely worth a sixpence. So the bishop 
found out this invention for the purpose of 
paying the Fuggers, who had advanced the 
money, by extorting it from the purses of the 
common people; and he sent this great purse - 
beater through the country, who threshed 
away lustily, so that the money fell and leaped 
and rang in the coffers lavishly. Meantime 
he did not forget himself. And the pope, too, 
had his hand in the dish, one half being set 
apart for the building of St. Peters at Kome. 
Thus the fellows sallied out joyously and hope- 



— 79 — 

fully to beat and thresh the people's purses. 
This, I say, I did not know then. So I wrote 
a letter to the Bishop of Magdeburg, exhorting 
and entreating him to restrain Tetzel and pro- 
hibit the preaching of such incongruities, lest 
evils grow out of it, and reminding him that 
this would be proper for him as Archbishop. 
But I received no reply. I also wrote to the 
Bishop of Brandenburg as ordinary, in whom 
I had a very gracious superior. He replied 
that I was attacking the power of the Church 
and would make myself trouble, and that he 
•would advise me to desist. I can easily con- 
ceive that both of them thought the pope 
would prove too mighty for me, a miserable 
beggar/' 

As the bishops would not put a stop to the 
abomination of indulgences, Luther could no 
longer keep silence. His divine vocation, as 
pastor and teacher of the Holy Scriptures, 
bound him to bear testimony against it. — 
Thus it was Almighty God Himself who called 
him to be the reformer of His Church and the 
antagonist of the papacy. But that he might 
not be hindered in this holy work God, in a 
wonderful manner, directed the heart of one 
who was mighty to favor him. 



— 80 — 

CHAPTER XV. , 

The Elector's Prophetic Dream op Luther. 

On the night of All Saints, before which 
Luther posted up his theses against papal in- 
dulgence, the Elector Frederick the Wise of 
Saxony had the following dream in Schwei- 
nitz, which he wrote down the next morning 
and, in the presence of the chancellor, com- 
municated it to his brother, Duke John of Sax- 
ony. 

"As I was lying upon my bed in the even- 
ing, somewhat faint and tired, while I was ■* 
praying, I soon fell asleep and slept soundly 
and rested comfortably for about the space of 
two and a half hours ; after which I awoke 
considerably refreshed. I lay upon my bed 
and had all manner of thoughts, and among 
other things, I reflected how I might fast to 
the honor of all the beloved saints, as well as 
myself and my courtiers. I also prayed for 
the poor souls in Purgatory, and concluded in 
my mind to come to their aid and assistance 
in their flames.- I also prayed to God for 
grace that he might lead me and my counsel- 
lors, and my country into all truth and save 
us, and that He would control by His omnipo- 
tent power the evil designs of those who 
would make our government troublesome. — 
Being filled with such thoughts soon after 
midnight, I fell asleep again, and soon com- 
menced dreaming. I dreamed that God sent 
a monk, with a fine honest countenance to me ; 



— 81 — 

this monk was the Apostle Paul's natural son, 
and had for his attendants, by God's command, 
all the beloved saints, who were to bear wit- 
ness to the monk, that there was no deception 
in him, but that certainly he was sent from 
God ; that God commanded me to allow this 
monk to write something upon the chapel of 
my castle at Wittenberg; that if I would do 
so, I should never be sorry for it. I told the 
monk through my chancellor, that as God had 
commanded me to let him write, and as he had 
such powerful evidence, he might write all 
that he was commanded to write. Immediate- 
ly the monk began to write and he made his 
letters so large that I could distinguish them 
here in Schweinitz. He used a pen so long 
that the other end of it reached to Rome, and 
penetrated into the ear of a lion, which lay 
there, so forcibly that it came out at the other 
ear, and then extended still further, until it 
came in contact with the triple crown of his 
holiness, the Pope, and gave it such a power- 
ful shock that it began to shake, and to fall 
from the head of his holiness. 7our high- 
ness and myself stood not far from his holiness 
at the time; and as his crown was falling, I 
stretched forth my hand to assist him in keep- 
ing it in its place. At this I awoke, holding 
up my arm, a good deal frightened and angry 
at the monk because he did not guide his pen 
more carefully ; but upon a little reflection, I 
found it was a dream. But I was still very 
sleepy, and soon my eyes were shut again, and 
6* 



— 82 — 

I fell into a sound sleep, and before I was 
aware of it, the same dream appeared to me 
again, the second time ; for I was again en- 
gaged with the monk. I saw how he contin- 
ued to write ; and with the stump of his pen 
he kept on piercing the Pope through the lion. 
At this the lion roared most dreadfully, and 
the whole city of Rome, and all the States of 
the Holy Empire came running to the place to 
see what this was. The Pope and the States 
requested that the monk might be restrained, 
and that I should be informed of the violence 
he was doing to his holiness, because this monk 
was in my country. Here I awoke the second 
time from my dream and marveled that I had 
dreamed it again. 

"I did not, however, suffer this thing to 
trouble my mind, but prayed that G-od would 
preserve his holiness, the Pope, from all evil ; 
and thus I fell asleep again the third time. — 
The monk appeared to me again, and I 
dreamed that the chief States of the Empire, 
among whom were also I and your highness, 
proceeded to Rome and endeavored hard to 
break the monk's pen, and to lead the Pope 
out of its way; but the more we exerted our- 
selves to break the pen, the more inflexible it 
became, the more it rattled and jarred as 
though it were iron ; it rattled and jarred so 
much that it hurt my ears, and penetrated my 
heart. Finally I became vexed and tired of 
it ; we gave up, and went away, one afte: an- 
other, and hid ourselves, fearing the monk 



— 83 — 

might be able to do more than eat bread, that 
he might perhaps do us some harm. Notwith- 
standing, I caused to be inquired of the monk, 
how he came in possession of that wonderful 
pen and what was the reason that it was 
so tough and solid. He answered, that it was 
taken from an old Bohemian Goose, (Huss) a 
hundred years ago, and that an old school- 
master of his had honored him by presenting 
it to him, requesting him that, because it was 
a good pen,, he should keep it, and use it in 
remembrance of him, that he himself also had 
tempered it ; that the reason why it was so 
strong, was because no man could take away 
the spirit from it, nor drain the soul out of it, 
as was the case with other pens. At this he 
himself was greatly astonished. 

"Soon after this a great cry arose, that out 
of this great pen of the monk, numberless 
other writing pens had grown in Wittenberg, 
and that it was amusing to see how learned 
men strove and contended about it ; that part 
of them thought that, in the course of time, 
many of these pens would become as inflexible 
and strong as the one in the monk's hand; 
and that something remarkable would certain- 
ly follow this monk and his pen. 

"I now concluded in my dream, to have a 
personal conversation with the monk as soon 
as possible. I awoke from my dream and 
found that it was morning. Wondering at 
my dream, I reflected upon it, and the fact 
that it was repeated three times in succession, 



— 84 — 

in one night, made a deep impression on my 
mind, and I immediately wrote down the prin- 
cipal parts of it. I am convinced that this 
dream is not wholly without signification, as 
it was repeated so often." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Luther's Ninety-Five Theses. — Beginning of 

the Reformation. 

The festival of the dedication of the Castle 
Church at Wittenberg, as the Church of all 
Saints, was celebrated on the 1. of November, 
on which occasion many people were wont to 
assemble there from far and near. The theses 
were, according to academic custom, put up on 
the previous day precisely at the hour of noon. 
It was on the 31. ofOctober, 1517, that Luther, 
in the name of God, nailed to the door of that 
Church his 95 Theses against the abuse of In- 
dulgences. In them he did not yet, however, 
attack the papal indulgences themselves, but 
only the grossest abuses practiced in connec- 
tion with them. Still he thus early admitted 
that the shameless preaching concerning in- 
dulgences rendered it difficult, even for the 
learned, to defend the Pope's honor and dig- 
nity. The first thesis reads thus: "When 
our Lord Jesus Christ said, Repent ye, His 
will was that the whole life of His believers 
on earth should be a constant, unceasing re- 
pentance." He further maintains: "Every 



— 85 — 

true Christian, whether living or dead, is a 
partaker of all the blessings of Christ and the 
Church by the gift of God, even without in- 
dulgence/' and thus confesses that faith alone 
justifies before God and saves. This was the 
doctrine for which thousands of anxious souls 
who were tormented by doubts had long since 
deeply sighed. Hence it was that in a few 
days the Theses had spread over all Germany, 
and in a few weeks were read with avidity 
throughout all Europe. In four years a trav- 
eller purchased them in Jerusalem. It was as 
though the angels had become messengers and 
borne them before the eyes of all men. No 
one believes what a noise they made, and 
nearly every person was pleased with them. 

When the pious monk, Dr. Fleck, found 
these theses posted up at Steinlausig and had 
read a portion of them, he exclaimed in the 
height of his joy : "Ho, ho! this man will 
accomplish it : he comes, upon whom we have 
waited so long." He then wrote a very con- 
soling letter to Luther and exhorted him to 
go on in good cheer, as he was on the right 
path, and God and all the prayers of the cap- 
tives in the Romish Babylon would be with 
him. But others were dismayed. The cele- 
brated Dr. Albert Kranz of Hamburg, who re- 
ceived Luther's Theses upon his death-bed a 
few days before his decease, exclaimed: "Go to 
your cell, good brother, and pray: Lord have 
mercy upon me/' by which he meant that the 
poor monk could not possibly succeed in his 



— 86 — 

battle against the mighty Pope. An old 
clergyman of Hoxter in Westphalia said : 
"My dear brother Martin, if you can abolish 
purgatory and the papal hawking and huck- 
stering you will be a great hero indeed !" 
Luther's prior and sub-prior also were alarmed, 
and entreated him not to bring disgrace upon 
their order. He replied: "Dear fathers, if 
the work is not begun in Grod's name, it will 
soon come to naught ; but if it is begun in His 
name, let Him do as seems to Him good/' 
"Then they were silent," Luther subsequently 
related, "and the work has gone on until 
now, and shall go on, if G-od please, more 
bravely still until the end, Amen !" 

In thus attacking the heart of the papacy by 
his Theses, without in the least designing it, 
Luther was not prompted by any carnal im- 
pulse. He himself says of it: "Who was I, 
a miserable and despised brother, looking then 
more like a corpse than a man, that I should 
set myself against the majesty of the Pope, 
who was a terror not only to the kings of the 
earth and to the whole world, but also to 
heaven and hell, if I may so speak, and at 
whose nod all must obey. What and how my 
heart suffered in that first and second year, 
and in what humility, which was not false or 
feigned, but most real, I would almost say in 
what despair, I labored, about this the secure 
spirits who afterwards with great pride and 
presumption attacked the majesty of the Pope, 
know ; alas ! but little." 



- 87 — 
CHAPTEE XVII. 

Negotiations with Cajetan and Miltitz. 

f The Theses of Luther had produced a mighty 
commotion in the hearts of all. Prierias, Eck, 
Eraser, Tetzel, &c. attacked him in hostile 
publications, in which they sought to defend 
indulgences. But by Luther's testimony a 
constantly increasing multitude was gained 
for the truth. 

At first the pope treated the whole affair 
with contempt, and thought that the contro- 
versy would cease without any interference on 
his part. Rut when he saw that his authority 
was waning on account of it, he on the 15. of 
July, 1518, cited Luther to appear personally 
at Rome within sixty days. Through the 
Elector's influence it was arranged, however, 
that Luther should have a hearing in Germany 
before the papal legate, Cardinal Cajetan, at 
Augsburg, where a diet was then in session. 
Luther was warned not to leave Wittenberg, 
as men of power were lying in wait for him to 
strangle or to drown him. But he said that 
he was not conscious of teaching anything but 
the pure theology, and that he long since 
knew his preaching would be a stumbling- 
block to the holy Jews and foolishness to the 
wise Greeks. He accordingly, in September, 
proceeded to Augsburg on foot, and reached 
Weimar on the 28th, where he passed the 
night in the cloister. When the purveyor of 
the monks, John Kestner, said in compassion: 



— 88 — 

"My dear Doctor, the Italians are learned 
men, and I am afraid you will not be able to 
maintain your cause before them : they will 
burn you on account of it," Luther replied: 
"With nettles it might pass, but with fire it 
would be too hot. Dear friend, in a Lord's 
Prayer entreat our dear Father in heaven in 
behalf of me and His dear child Christ, whose 
is the cause which I advocate, that He may be 
gracious to Him. If He only maintains His 
cause, mine is maintained ; but if He will not 
maintain it, I assuredly cannot maintain it for 
Him, and His will be the dishonor." 

Luther arrived in Augsburg on the 7. of 
October, and wished to proceed at once to the 
legate ; but the councilmen, to whom Luther 
had been recommended by the elector, opposed 
it, because they knew that the legate was bit- 
terly hostile to Luther. They therefore sought 
to procure for him a safe-conduct from the 
emperor, but obtained it only after three days, 
as the emperor was absent. Meantime the 
servants of the cardinal came daily and said : 
"The cardinal offers you every favor, why do 
you fear? He is a very kind father." But 
another whispered in his ear : "Do not believe 
it, he never keeps his promise/' On the 9. 
the orator of the Margrave of Montferrat, Ur- 
ban, sent Luther word that he should not go 
to the legate without first having conversed 
with him. He then visited Luther, having, 
according to the general opinion, been appoint- 
ed by the legate himself, and urged him with 



— 89 — 

great prolixity and, as lie said, with the most 
salutary counsels, simply to coincide with the 
legate, return to the Church, and recant his 
errors. He earnestly advised Luther not to 
defend himself, and said : " Would you enter 
the lists?" Luther: "If I can be convinced 
of having said anything different from the 
sense of the holy Eoman Church, I shall im- 
mediately condemn myself and retract/ ' "Oh, 
ho!" he repeated, "you intend to enter the 
lists/' He then gave utterance to some most 
absurd propositions, and admitted that it is 
allowable to preach false opinions, if they only 
prove advantageous and fill the coffers, but 
maintained that no dispute concerning the 
pope's power could be tolerated, and that all 
must submit to his command, even in matters 
of faith. On the third day he came again and 
reproachingly asked him why he did not come 
to the cardinal, who was graciously waiting 
for him. Luther replied that he must follow 
the advice of the honorable men, to whom he 
had been recommended by the elector, who 
were all of the opinion that he should not go 
without a safe-conduct, but that he would go 
as soon as this were received. Urban was 
irritated at this and said : "Do you think that 
the elector will hazard his dominious on your 
account?" Luther: "That I do not at all 
desire." Urban : "But where will you take 
refuge then?" 'Luther: "Under the heavens." 
Urban : "If you had the pope and the cardin- 
als in your power, what would you do?" Lu- 



- 90 - 

ther : u l would show them all respect and 
honor." Upon this Urban bit his finger, 
after the fashion of the Italians, and said 
"Hm, ha, ha !" and came no more. 

On the 12. of October the hearing finally 
commenced. The legate represented to Lu- 
ther that he had taught the following two 
errors : first, that the treasure of indulgence 
is not the merits or the sufferings of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and secondly, that a person de- 
siring to receive the holy sacrament of the 
altar must have faith of his own : these errors 
he should recant. Luther adduced the proof 
orally and in writing, from the Holy Scrip- 
tures, that man is justified alone by faith in 
God, and that he becomes worthy to receive 
the sacrament alone by faith in the words of 
Christ ; but the legate paid no attention to 
this. On the third day indulgences were the 
subject of conference. The legate cried inces- 
santly that Luther should recant. The latter 
sought ten times to speak, but every time the 
cardinal thundered away to drown his voice. 
Finally Luther also spoke in loud tones, but 
with clue reverence, saying : "Most worthy 
father ! your highness must not suppose that 
we Germans know nothing about Grammar. 
To have a treasure and to acquire a treasure 
are two different things/' The legate then 
arose in anger and said : "Go, and let me not 
see you again unless you recant/ ' So Luther 
departed from the cardinal's presence. 

The latter, in the afternoon, assigned to 



— 91 — 

Staupitz the task of inducing Luther to recant. 
Staupitz confessed his inability to do it, as 
Luther was too well versed in Scripture for 
him. He finally consented, but when Luther 
entreated him to put a different interpretation 
upon the Scriptures adduced if it were possible, 
he acknowledged that he could not. He him- 
self said to Luther at the time : "Consider, 
dear brother, that you have begun in the name 
of Jesus." Staupitz then desired the cardinal 
again to confer with Luther, but Cajetan re- 
plied : "I have no desire to dispute further 
with this beast, for he has penetrating eyes 
and wonderful thoughts revolve in his head." 
Upon this Luther addressed a humble letter 
to the cardinal, in which he declared his 
readiness to recant everything as soon as he 
could be convinced of having erred ; but he 
received no reply. In a subsequent letter he 
respectfully took leave of the cardinal, and 
again expressed his willingness to submit to 
the judgment of the Church, but added with 
boldness that, by the grace of God, he now had 
less fear of punishment than of errors in mat- 
ters of faith. As he still received no answer, 
the silence of the legate began to seem suspic- 
ious to him and to all his friends. Violence 
was apprehended. He therefore hastened 
away from Augsburg on the 20. of October, 
having left an appeal a papa male informato 
ad papam melius informandum, that is, from 
the pope badly informed to the pope to be bet- 
ter informed. Dr. Staupitz furnished him 



— 92 — 

with a horse, the council secured for him a 
guide who was acquainted with the roads, and 
Christopher Langemantel assisted him to make 
his way out of the city, at night, through a 
narrow gate. Thus he rode eight German 
miles on the first day, and when he reached 
the inn, in the evening, he was so weary that 
after dismounting in the stable he was unable 
to stand, and immediately fell upon the straw. 
In Graefenthal he was overtaken by count 
Albert of Mansfeld, who laughed at his horse- 
manship and constrained him to become his 
guest. On the 31. of October he again arrived 
at Wittenberg in good health. 

"When the legate heard that Luther had de- 
parted, he became very angry and wrote to 
the elector that he should send Luther to 
Rome, or at least banish him from his domin- 
ions. Others, however, advised the contrary. 
Thus the excellent Bishop of Wuerzburg, 
Laurentius of Bibra, wrote : "Let your high- 
ness by no means dismiss the pious Dr. Mar- 
tin, for injustice is done him." Even the 
emperor Maximilian sent a message to the 
elector expressing the wish that he would take 
good care of the monk, as he might yet be 
needed. 

The pope now plainly saw that Luther's 
doctrine could not be suppressed by violence. 
He therefore resorted to measures of mildness, 
and sent his chamberlain, Charles of Miltitz, 
as nuncio to the elector to present to him the 
consecrated golden rose, which, however, was 



— 93 - 

only ridiculed. This Miltitz, in January, 
1519, had a consultation in Altenburg with 
Luther, in which he entreated Luther to assist 
in making peace, and promised that he would 
use his influence with the pope to the same 
end. Luther consented to everything as far 
as he could without violating his conscience 
and sacrificing truth. They finally agreed 
that both parties should in future keep silence 
and Luther should address a humble letter to 
the pope. 

Luther relates that Miltitz was really com- 
missioned by the pope to bring him as a cap- 
tive to Rome, but that God defeated him on 
the way, that is, he was deterred by fear on 
seeing the multitudes who were favorable to 
Luther. He therefore exchanged his violent 
purpose for an artful pretence of benevolence. 
"But he betrayed himself and showed what he 
had purposed in his heart when he said to me: 
c O, dear Martin, I thought you were an old, 
decrepit theologian, who sat behind the stove 
and disputed ; but I see you are yet a young 
man, fresh and vigorous. I would not under- 
take to bring you away from Germany even 
though I had with me an army of 25,000 men; 
for on my journey I embraced the opportunity 
to ascertain how the people are disposed toward 
you and what they think of you, and I have 
learned at least this much, that where there is 
one on the pope's side there are three on yours 
against the popeV 

So they parted on very friendly terms. On 



— 94 — 

the evening before, Miltitz had Luther take 
supper with him, admonished him with tears, 
and dismissed him with a kiss ; but Luther 
considered this a Judas kiss, and says that he 
acted also on his part as if he did not under- 
stand these Italian arts and crocadile tears. 
Upon this the nuncio summoned the shameless 
bawler Tetzel into his presence and command- 
ed him to stop his indulgence traffic. Tetzel 
was so terrified that he died soon afterwards ; 
and no one pitied the miserable creature, who 
was now forsaken by God and men, except 
Luther, who wrote him a letter of consolation 
and preached to him also the grace of God. 

In accordance with his promise Luther wrote 
a humble letter to the pope, wherein he yet 
said: "Most holy Father! I declare in the 
presence of God and all His creatures, that I 
never desired and do not now desire to infringe, 
either by force or stratagem, the power of your 
holiness and of the Roman Church. Nay, I 
freely confess that the authority of this Church 
is over all, and that nothing in heaven or on 
earth should be preferred over it, except Jesus 
Christ alone, who is Lord of all." Luther 
would thus gladly have had peace, but his 
enemies soon drew him, against his will, into 
the contest again, and in its progress it became 
ever clearer to him that the pope is the predict- 
ed Antichrist. 



— 95 — 
CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Leipzig Disputation. 

Dr. Carlstadt had taught, like Luther, that 
man's free will can, without grace, do nothing 
but sin, and had, on account of this doctrine, 
entered into a dispute with Dr. John Eck. — 
By the intervention of Luther they now agreed 
to settle the controversy in a public disputa- 
tion. Eck published the propositions upon 
which he intended to dispute with Carlstadt ; 
but in these he artfully directed his principal 
blows at Luther himself. He says in them : 
"It is not in accordance with the Scriptures, 
nor with the holy fathers, to say that Christ's 
words, Repent ye, meant to render the whole 
life of believers a continual repentance." In 
the 13. thesis he declared it to be a necessary 
article of faith that the pope is, by divine 
right, the vicar of Christ and the successor of 
Peter. 

Thus Luther was compelled to appear him- 
self and defend the truth against Dr. Eck. — 
On the 24. of June, 1519, Luther with Dr. 
Carlstadt, Philip Melanchthon, Dr. John 
Lang and Nicholas Amsdorf came to Leipzig, 
accompanied by several hundred Wittenberg 
students armed with spears and halberds, who 
walked beside their carriages. The discussion 
was held in the castle of Pleissenberg, the 
largest hall of which duke George had beauti- 
fully decorated for the purpose. All the seats 
and tables were hung with gorgeous tapestry* 



— 96 — 

The space allotted to the Wittenbergers was 
adorned with the portrait of St. Martin, that 
assigned to Dr. Eck with a picture of St. 
George. At the opening of the discussion, 
Peter Mosellanus, Professor of Eloquence at 
Leipzig, delivered a Latin address on the true 
method of disputing. When he had closed, 
the halls resounded with the "Come, Holy 
Spirit, God the Lord," whilst the whole as- 
sembly reverently knelt. A great multitude 
of persons had gathered together. To pre- 
serve order a guard of armed citizens, with 
banners flying, were in daily attendance at the 
castle. 

Eck disputed first with Carlstadt on the 
freedom of the will, afterwards with Luther 
on the primacy of the pope. He maintained 
that the pope is, by divine right, the head of 
the Christian Church. Luther replied that 
the Christian Church must undoubtedly have 
a head, but this head is Christ, not the pope. 
If the pope were the head of the Church, the 
Church would, at the death of a pope, be with- 
out a head until another is elected. The East- 
ern Church never acknowledged the pope, but 
is not on that account heretical. The pope is 
primate only by human right. Eck sought by 
all means in his power to have Luther suspect- 
ed of the Bohemian heresy. Luther warded 
off such suspicions, maintaining that the Bo- 
hemians did wrong by arbitrarily rending the 
unity of the Church. When he further de- 
clared that there are among the articles of 



— 97 — 

Huss, or of IheBohemians, some which are quite 
Christian and evangelical, duke George shook 
his head, placed both hands on his hips, and 
said in a tone loud enough to be heard by the 
whole audience : "The plague take it V 9 

The Bohemians soon afterwards actually en- 
tered into an alliance with Luther who, on the 
3. of October, 1519, received letters from two 
Hussite ministers of Prague, the pastor John 
Paduschka and the provost Wenceslaus Ros- 
dialovinus, of the College of Emperor Charles. 
In these they state that they had read his wri- 
tings with pleasure, and exhort him not to 
neglect the grace of God, which is upon him 
for the salvation of many, and to bear willing- 
ly the reproach of Christ. They assure him 
that there are in Bohemia many precious be- 
lieving souls who support him with their 
prayers night and day. The former made him 
a present of knives, the latter of a book of 
John Huss, remarking: "This one thing I 
know, that what John Huss once was in Bohe- 
mia, that you, Martin, are in Saxony. " 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Luther burns the Papal Bull. 

Eck had flattered himself that he would 
triumph over Luther, but he sustained a dis- 
graceful defeat. Filled with rage he hastened 
to Rome to seek revenge. At this period, 
Luther wrote the two celebrated works : "To 
7* 



— 98 — 

the Christian Nobility of the German Nation 
on the Reformation of Christianity," and "Of 
the Babylonish Captivity of the Church," in 
which with holy zeal, and with ever increasing 
clearness, and decision, he exposed and at- 
tacked the abominations of the papacy. 

Charles of Miltitz tried once more to recon- 
cile Luther with the pope. Luther dedicated 
to the pope his masterly work on the "Liberty 
of the Christian," which, on the 6. of Sep- 
tember, 1520, he sent to him, accompanied by 
a letter full of reverence for his person. "It 
is true," he says in it, "I have boldly attacked 
the Roman court, which you yourself must 
confess, as no man on earth can do otherwise, 
to be worse and more shameful than ever Sod- 
om, Gomorra and Babylon were ; and as far as 
I can see, there is no hope and no help for its 
wickedness. In the meantime you, Holy Fa- 
ther Leo, sit like a sheep among the wolves, 
and like Daniel among the lions, and Ezekiel 
among the scorpions. What can you do alone 
.against so many wild monsters?" He then 
declared that he would have kept his promise 
to remain silent had not Eck's stupid ambition 
.drawn him into the discussion. 

In the meantime Eck had succeeded at Rome 
in inducing the pope to issue a bull, dated 
. June4., 1520, in which 41 propositions extract- 
ed from Luther's works were condemned, his 
writings were ordered to be burnt, and sen- 
tence of excommunication was pronounced 
against him as a heretic, if he did not recant 



— 99 — 

within 60 days. Eck carried the bull through 
Germany in triumph. In the hereditary do- 
main of the emperor he actually succeeded in 
having Luther ' s works committed to the flames, 
but in many places, especially in electoral Sax- 
ony, he was received with universal derision. 
In Leipzig, where he at first made a pompous 
display of his bull, and boasted that he would 
now teach Martin something, he fared so bad- 
ly that he was compelled to seek refuge in the 
Paulinian cloister and dared not show his face 
again. 

Luther continued in good cheer, notwith- 
standing his condemnation by the pope. He 
wrote to a friend: "I have now much more 
courage, since I have become certain that the 
pope is plainly the Antichrist and Satan's 
seat/ 7 He wrote a work " Against the bull of 
the Antichrist/' in which he says; "If the 
pope does not revoke and condemn this bull, 
and punish Dr. Eck and his associates, its ad- 
vocates, no one shall doubt that the pope is 
the enemy of God, the persecuter of Christ, 
the disturber of the Church, and the real An- 
tichrist. For hitherto such a condemnation 
of the Christian faith publicly professed, has 
never been heard as is uttered in this infernal, 
accursed bull." 

Thus Luther was forcibly ejected from the 
Eomish Church, because he had confessed the 
pure doctrine of God's word. He therefore 
desired to show the whole world what he 
thought of such an excommunication. On the 



— 100 — 

10. of November, 1520, at 9 o'clock in the 
morning, a fire was kindled at the Elster gate 
of Wittenberg, and, in the presence of a large 
assembly of doctors, masters and students, Dr. 
Luther cast the bull which had been sent him, 
together with the papal Canon Law, into the 
flames, saying: "Since thou hast vexed the 
Holy One of God, may the everlasting fire 
vex and consume thee!" On the following 
day he earnestly admonished his hearers to 
guard against the papal decrees, saying : "If 
you do not with all your heart contend against 
the scandalous government of the pope, you 
cannot be saved." He then, in a tract, laid 
before the public his reasons for taking this 
step and showed, at the same time, what un- 
godly propositions are contained in the papal 
Canon Law, among which are these : "The 
pope and his court are not obliged to submit to 
the laws of God. If the pope were so wick- 
ed as to lead innumerable souls to hell, no one 
would have a right to reprove him for it." 



CHAPTER XX. 

Luther goes to Worms. 

In the year 1521 the German Emperor 
Charles V. held his first diet at Wor.ms. The 
elector asked Luther whether he would appear 
if he were cited by the emperor, to which he 
replied : "In humble obedience I am ready to 
present myself at the approaching diet of 



— 101 — 

Worms and, by the help of the Almighty, so 
to conduct myself that all men may see that 
in what I have written and taught I was not 
moved by an inconsiderate, disorderly and 
wanton obstinacy, nor by a thirst for temporal 
honor or profit, but that my desire was, as a 
poor teacher of the Holy Scriptures, according 
to my conscience, my oath and my duty to 
glorify God, to promote the salvation of Chris- 
tians, to benefit the whole German nation, to 
extirpate dangerous abuses and superstitions, 
and to deliver the whole Christian Church 
from endless burdens and blasphemies.' ' And 
to Spalatin he wrote: "If I am cited, I pur- 
pose to go ; if I cannot go in good health, I 
will go there sick; for if the emperor calls 
me I cannot doubt that it is the call of God. 
If they then use violence we must commend 
the matter to God, He who preserved the 
three men in the fiery furnace of the king of 
Babylon, still lives and reigns. Here you 
have my mind and my resolution. Expect 
everything of me, only not flight or recanta- 
tion. 1 will not fly, much less recant. The 
Lord Jesus help me ! For I can, without in- 
jury to the cause of piety and the salvation of 
souls, do neither/ ' 

On the 26. of March the herald of the em- 
peror, Caspar Sturm, who was to accompany 
Luther, brought him the imperial citation to 
appear at the diet within 21 days. His friends 
represented to Luther the great danger which 
he was about to meet, warning him that, be- 



— 102 — 

cause there were so many cardinals and bish- 
ops at Worms, they would forthwith commit 
him to the flames, as they did Huss at Con- 
stance. But he answered: "And if his ene- 
mies built a fire which should extend from 
Wittenberg to Worms and reach to the heav- 
ens, he would, having been cited, appear in 
the name of the Lord, and enter the jaws of 
Behemoth, confessing Christ and letting Him 
rule." "I do not think of flying/ ' he wrote 
to Spalatin, "and leaving the word of God in 
danger, but intend to confess it unto death, 
the Lord being merciful to me and helping me." 
Thus he joyfully entered upon his journey, ac- 
companied by Justus Jonas, Nicholas Ams- 
dorf and Jerome Schurff, a celebrated lawyer, 
and commended himself everywhere to the 
prayers of Christian people. On the way he 
preached to vast assemblages of people at var- 
ious places. Satan, indeed, sought in every 
possible manner to hinder his progress. Dur- 
ing the whole journey he was unwell, as he had 
never been before. In Eisenach he became so 
sick that fears were entertained for his life. 
He was doomed, too, to see the messengers, 
who were sent to post up in all the towns the 
imperial mandate condemning Dr. Martin. — 
His principal enemies, moreover, who dreaded 
his appearance in person, took pains to keep 
him away, using sometimes threats and some- 
times flattery. But still the faithful hero re- 
mained fixed in his resolve. "Christ lives/' 
he wrote from Frankfort, "therefore we shall 



— 103 — 

enter Worms in spite of the gates of hell and 
the powers of the air." Even at Oppenheim 
yet, he received an anxious letter from Spala- 
tin, earnestly warning him not to come to 
Worms. He replied, "And if there were as 
many devils in Worms as there are tiles upon 
the houses, still I would enter it." 

Thus on the morning of April 16. Dr. Lu- 
ther, clothed in a monk's gown, entered 
Worms in an open carriage, accompanied by 
three others. Before him rode the imperial 
herald in his official vestments, bearing the 
eagle escutcheon upon his breast, attended by 
his servant. Many noblemen and courtiers 
rode out to meet him. When he drove into 
the city, theDuke ofBavaria's jester, Cochlasus, 
met him with a crucifix in his hand, and, 
whether instigated by another or moved by a 
spirit of prophecy, addressed him with the 
words ; "Now thou art come, thou expected 
one, for whom we have been waiting in the 
darkness." More than two thousand persons 
attended Luther to his lodgings, where many 
princes, counts and lords, temporal and spir- 
itual, visited and conversed with him until 
night. The young landgrave Philip of Hesse, 
also rode up to see him, and upon taking leave 
he extended to him his hand and said : "If 
you are in the right, Doctor, God help you !" 



— 104 — 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Luther at the Diet. 

Early the next morning the marshal of the 
empire, Ulrich of Pappenheim, visited Luther 
and communicated to him the imperial order 
that he should appear at the diet in the after- 
noon at 4 o'clock. So the decisive hour was 
near at hand when the faithful witness of Je- 
sus Christ must appear before the mighty of 
the earth. But Luther did not put his trust 
in men, he leaned alone upon God, whose grace 
and help he implored in a fervent prayer, 
which was heard by several persons and taken 
down, as follows : 

"Almighty, eternal God, what a vain thing 
is the world's grandeur, yet how greatly do 
men prize it, and how little faith have they in 
God ! How frail and weak is the flesh, and 
how powerful and active, through his apostles 
and the worldly-wise, is Satan I How swiftly 
does it apostatize and pursue the beaten track, 
and the broad road to perdition, the reward of 
the ungodly ; looking only at what is splendid 
and powerful, grand and mighty, honored 
and respected ! Truly, if to such things I too 
must look I am undone, the hour of my de- 
struction is come, my doom is fixed. God, 
God, Thou my God, Thou my God, do 
Thou stand by me, and support me against 
the combined reason and wisdom of the 
world ; do Thou do it, Thou must do it, Thou 
alone. It is not my cause, truly, but Thine ; 



— 105 — 

I have nothing personally which could bring 
me in contact, and engage me with these great 
lords of the world. Truly, I too would pre- 
fer happy, quiet days, and an undisturbed life. 
But the cause is Thine, Lord and it is right- 
eous forever. Support Thou me ; I confide 
not in men, but in Thee, Thou faithful, eter- 
nal God. All is vanity and trifling ; the flesh, 
and all that savors of the flesh is deceitful. 

God, my God, dost thou not hear, my God? 
Art Thou dead ? No, Thou canst not die ; 
Thou only hidest Thyself. Hast Thou chosen 
me for this, I ask Thee, as I am sure Thou 
hast, then do Thou direct all ; for I never, in 
all my life, thought or intended to be opposed 
to such great lords. Do Thou, then, my God, 
assist me in the name of Thy beloved Son, 
Jesus Christ, who shall be my shield and pro- 
tection, yea my strong fortress, through the 
power and strengthening influences of Thy Holy 
Spirit. Lord where dost Thou remain? Thou 
my God, where art Thou? Appear, appear ! 

1 am ready, even to lay down my life, patiently 
like a lamb. For the cause is righteous, and 
it is Thine, neither will I ever separate my- 
self from Thee. Be this resolved in Thy 
name : the world, with all its fiendish might, 
shall still leave my conscience untrammelled. 
And if my body, notwithstanding it is the 
workmanship of Thy hands, and Thy creature, 
should perish, and perish utterly, (against 
which, nevertheless, Thy Word and Spirit as- 
sure me) the soul is Thine, it belongs to Thee, 



— 106 - 

and will remain Thine forever. Amen. God 
help me ! Amen." 

As soon as four o'clock arrived Luther was 
brought to the diet. Immense multitudes of 
people crowded around to see the monk, some 
even climbing to the roofs of houses for this 
purpose, so that it was necessary for the mar- 
shal of the empire to conduct him through 
private gardens and houses in secrecy, in order 
to reach the hall. When he was about to en- 
ter the council Hall, an old General, George 
ot Freundsburg, laying his hand on Luther's 
shoulder, said: "My poor monk, my poor 
monk, you are now upon a march such as I 
and many a captain have never, in our sever- 
est campaigns, entered upon ; but if you have 
the truth and are sure of it, go forward in 
God's name, and fear nothing ; God will not 
forsake you I" The door was opened and Lu- 
ther stood before the emperor and the realm. 
It was the largest and most brilliant assembly 
of the German Estates that had been held for 
a long period. Besides the emperor upon his 
throne, there was present his brother, the Arch- 
duke Ferdinand, six electors, twenty-four 
dukes, eight margraves, thirty-six bishops, 
one papal and five royal ambassadors, and up- 
wards of two hundred others of high rank. 
In the antechamber and at the windows, about 
five thousand persons were congregated. 

Luther was first asked whether he acknowl- 
edged the books, which lay upon a bench, to 
be his, and then whether he was willing to re- 



— 107 — 

cant their contents. The first question, the 
titles of the hooks having been read, he an- 
swered in the affirmative. In regard to the 
second, as it pertained to faith and salvation, 
he asked time for consideration. This was 
granted until the following day. He was then 
conducted back to his lodgings by the mar- 
shal of the empire. On the way the people 
cheered him, and a voice cried: "Blessed ia 
the womb that bare thee \" Many brave men 
of the nobility also visited and encouraged 
him, saying: "Doctor, how is it? it is said 
that they intend to burn you ; but this shall 
not be ; rather should they all perish with 
you." But Luther trusted alone in God. 

When, on the following day, he had been 
again brought before the diet and was asked 
whether he would defend all his books, or 
whether he was willing to recant anything, he 
greeted the assembly reverently, and stated 
that in all that, in the simplicity of his heart, 
he had taught and written, he sought only the 
glory of God and the welfare and the salvation 
of souls. He then expressed himself more 
particularly upon the contents of his books. 
In some he had taught the word of God in its 
purity ; in others he had attacked the papacy 
and the doctrine ol the Papists ; in the others 
he had written against individual defenders of 
the papal tyranny, in which he had no doubt 
been more severe than was meet, as he was no 
live saint. "But," he continued, "as I am a 
mere man, and not God, I cannot otherwise 



— 108 — 

defend my books than my Lord and Savior did 
His doctrine, who said : 'If I have spoken 
evil, bear witness of the evil/ If the Lord, 
who knew that He could not err, refused not 
to hear testimony against his doctrine, even 
though borne by a wicked servant, how much 
more should I, who am but dust and ashes, 
and who may easily err, be willing to hear if 
any one would bear witness against my doc- 
trine. For this reason, by the mercy of God 
I conjure you, Most Serene Emperor, and you, 
most illustrious Princes, and all men of every 
rank, whoever may be able, to testify against 
me and prove from the writings of the proph- 
ets and apostles that I have erred. As soon as 
I am convinced of this I will retract every er- 
ror, and will be the first to throw my books 
into the fire. What I have just said, plainly 
shows, I hope, that I have carefully weighed 
and considered the danger and the character 
of the dissension which has arisen on account 
of my doctrine, and of which I was yesterday 
earnestly admonished. To me it is a source of 
the greatest joy to see that the Gospel is the 
occasion of trouble and dispute, for this is the 
nature and destiny of the word of God, as our 
Lord Himself says : C I came not to send peace 
on earth, but a sword ; for I am come to set a 
man at variance against his father,' &c. — 
Therefore it should be well considered that 
God is wonderful in His counsels and judg- 
ments, lest that which is done to allay dissen- 
sions proceed from confidence in our own 



— 109 — 

strength and wisdom, and, by persecuting the 
word of God, we draw down npon ourselves a 
terrible deluge of insurmountable dangers. 
Besides this, we should be concerned not to 
have the reign of this good and noble youth, 
the emperor Charles, not only not to begin, 
but not to continue and end in unhappy trou- 
bles. For it is God who taketh the crafty in 
their own cunning and removeth the moun- 
tains and they know not. Therefore it is nec- 
essary to fear God." 

This, and much besides, Luther said not in 
a boisterous manner, but modestly and defer- 
entially. At the close of his address, which 
lasted two hours, he was quite exhausted. — 
But the emperor did not fully understand tbe 
German, and therefore desired Luther to re- 
peat his speech in Latin. "I was in a great 
perspiration," he himself relates, "and was 
very warm on account of the tumult, and be- 
cause I stood among princes. Then Frederick 
of Thunan said to me, 'If you are unable to 
do it, Doctor, it is enough/ But I repeated 
all my words in Latin." Now, however, a 
clear and concise answer was demanded to the 
question whether he would recant or not, 
Luther said : "Since your most serene Majesty 
and your high Mightinesses require from me a 
clear, simple and precise answer, I will give 
you one with neither horns nor teeth, and it is 
this : unless I am convinced by the testimony 
of the word of God, or by clear and cogent 
reasons, as I cannot submit my faith to the 



— 110 — 

pope nor to the councils, which have manifestly 
often erred and contradicted themselves, and 
as I am bound in conscience by the passages 
which I have quoted, I cannot and will not re- 
cant anything, for it is neither safe nor right 
to do anything against conscience. Here I 
stand ; I cannot do otherwise ; God help me ! 
Amen." 

Luther was then led away by two men. — 
This occasioned a tumult, and the knights in- 
quired whether they were leading him away as 
a prisoner ; but Luther replied that they were 
merely accompanying him. While he was 
pressed by the crowd, duke Eric of Brunswick 
sent him a silver flagon filled with Eimbeck 
beer, with the request that he would refresh 
himself with it. Luther replied: u As duke 
Eric has this day remembered me, so may our 
Lord Jesus remember him in the hour of his 
departure/' which words the duke remembered 
in his last struggle. When he entered his 
lodgings the Spaniards ridiculed him ; but he 
was so bold and so joyful in the Lord that he 
said to Spalatin and others : "If I had a thou- 
sand heads I would rather have them all sev- 
ered from my body than recant." 

Deep was the impression which the power- 
ful address of Luther, so full of faith, made 
upon the whole assembly. Many were gained 
for him and his cause. The emperor, howev- 
er, declared : "This man shall not make a her- 
etic of me." The papists were enraged that 
liberty had been granted him to defend himself 



— Ill — 

at such length. Many urged the emperor to 
condemn him notwithstanding his safe con- 
duct. But the emperor replied : "We should 
keep our promises, and if faith and honor were 
banished from the whole world, we should ex- 
pect to find them in the German emperor.' ' 
Even duke George of Saxony, Luther's bitter- 
est enemy, declared that it would not accord 
with ancient German customs to break the 
plighted faith. The elector had heard Luther 
with great favor. With deep joy he said to 
Spalatin on the same evening : "Oh how well 
Martin conducted himself ! what a beautiful 
address he delivered, both in German andLat- 
in, before the Emperor and all the estates ! he 
is much too bold I" 

Further efforts were made to induce Luther 
to recant, but all in vain ; he referred to the 
words of Gamaliel : "If this counsel or this 
work be of men, it will come to nought ; but 
if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it/' The 
emperor then ordered him to return home, 
protected by his safe conduct, within 21 days. 
Luther replied : "As the Lord hath pleased so 
hath it come to pass : blessed be the name of 
the Lord." He then again declared to the 
emperor and the estates that he had desired 
nothing but that "a reformation according to 
the word of Hod might be effected, for which 
he had so earnestly prayed/' On the 26th of 
April, 1521, he departed from Worms, preced- 
ed by the imperial herald* 



— 112 — 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Luther at the Wartburg. 

The most of the Estates had already left 
Worms when the imperial decree, called the 
edict of Worms, was issued on May 26, pro- 
nouncing in the most venomous terms the ban 
upon Luther and his defenders, and ordering 
the destruction of his hooks. 

Meantime Luther and his companions were 
on the way to Wittenberg. In Eisenach he 
preached, then visited his relatives inMoehra. 
On the 4. of May he took leave of them to con- 
tinue his journey by way of Altenstein. But 
as he drove through a narrow pass in the vicin- 
ity of this castle, suddenly two knights with 
their attendants sprang upon them, ordered 
the driver to halt, pulled Luther with great 
violence from the carriage, dressed him in a 
horseman's garb, put him upon a horse, and 
dashed away into the forest, whilst his terrified 
companions were permitted to proceed. They 
rode about the forest for several hours until, 
about midnight, they reached the strong 
mountain castle of the Wartburg, near Eis- 
enach. 

This was done at the command of the elec- 
tor, Frederick the Wise of Saxony, who de- 
sired to secure Luther against his foes. The 
latter finally yielded to the elector's prudent 
counsels, although he would much rather have 
shed his blood as a testimony to the truth, 
and remained 10 months at the Wartburg, 



- 113 — 

where lie was known by the name of Yonker 
George. The news of his capture spread with 
great rapidity. It was reported that he had 
fallen into the hands of his enemies. Many 
lamented him as though he were dead, while 
his enemies rejoiced. 

The silence and solitude of his Patmos, as, 
referring to Rev. i, 9, he called the Wartburg, 
were of great benefit to him; for here he 
could devote himself to the word of God with- 
out interruption. This external quiet was, in- 
deed, painful to him. "I would rather/' he 
says, "burn upon glowing coals for the honor 
of God's word, than rot here halt alive." — 
But iie was resigned to his lot, because he saw 
it to be the will of the Lord. "I am a singu- 
lar prisoner/' he wrote, "who remain here 
not only voluntarily, but also involuntarily; 
voluntarily, because my Lord wills it thus ; 
involuntarily, because I would gladly preach 
the word of God among the people." He suf- 
fered while here not only from repeated attacks 
of painful sickness, but also great mental an- 
guish. He complained of want of zeal in 
prayer, of indolence, of drowsiness, and of 
many other evils, so that he was tempted to 
think that God had forsaken him. "Here I 
sit," he writes, "and all the day long picture 
to myself the Church, and deplore my insen- 
sibility, because I do not dissolve in tears and 
pour forth from mine eyes streams of sorrow 
for the slain of my people." He was troubled 
by Satan, moreover, not only with the severest 
8* 



— ill — 

internal struggles, but also with external ter- 
rors, which he conquered, however, by despising 
them. His confession, in this regard, is re- 
markable, that such crosses are much heavier 
to bear is solitude than among friends, who 
can support and comfort us with the word of 
God. 

Notwithstanding these difficulties Luther 
displayed unparallelled activity. He studied 
Greek and Hebrew with great assiduity, 
preached diligently to his associates, wrote 
numerous spirited letters to his friends, and 
prepared many valuable works for the Church. 
He translated into the German language the 
whole New Testament, which was published 
in the following year, and circulated in a 
short time through all Germany. Even me- 
chanics and women read it so eagerly that 
they gradually committed it to memory, and 
in the course of a few months were able to dis- 
pute with the priests and confute them with 
the word of God. He also wrote the first part 
of his Church Postill and a work "On Spirit- 
ual and Monastic Vows," which he dedicated 
to his dear father. In the latter he proves 
clearly from the word of God that the vows 
which are taken without, yea, against the 
word of God, are not binding upon the con- 
science of a baptized Christian. 

During Luther's absence, the cardinal Al- 
bert of Mayence had again ordered the preach- 
ing of indulgences at Halle. Luther wrote a 
tract " Against the Idol at Halle/' and wrote 



— 115 — 

to the Elector that if he did not, within 14 
days, abolish the abomination of indulgences 
he would publish his treatise and show to the 
world the difference between a bishop and a 
wolf. The elector answered graciously that 
the sale of indulgences had been stopped, and 
that he would in future show himself to be a 
pious, spiritual prince. 

Amid so many labors Luther needed recrea- 
tion. In the pleasures of great lords and idle 
people, as he called those of the chase, he sel- 
dom took part. Sometimes he visited good 
friends in the neighborhood, who often failed to 
recognize him as he appeared in the dress of a 
knight, with a long beard and with a sword at 
his side. In such excursions he was accompa- 
nied by a discreet cavalier, whose faithful ad- 
monitions not to lay aside his sword and take 
up his books as soon as he entered a house, 
lest he should be taken for a priest, he subse- 
quently often praised. But his church and 
pulpit at Wittenberg were constantly in his 
mind, so that once at table the words escaped 
him : "0, that I were at Wittenberg/ ' He 
also once, in November, secretly visited his 
friends there, and having enjoyed himself in 
their company for several days, he returned to 
the Wartburg. 



— 116 — 
CHAPTER XXIII. 

Luther returns to Wittenberg. 

By the instrumentality of Luther the happy 
sound of the Gospel had gone forth into every 
land. Satan had indeed sought, by means of 
the pope, emperor and learned men, to sup- 
press it, but it continued to spread all the 
more rapidly. He then adopted another plan 
to crush the truth : he excited disturbances in 
Luther's own congregation. During Luther's 
absence, but with his consent, the Augustine 
monks had abolished the papal mass and had 
introduced the true Christian mass, or the Ho- 
ly Supper of the Lord. But Dr. Carlstadt, 
in whose estimation the reformation was pro- 
gressing too slowly, instigated the students to 
a scandalous licentiousness, who, in the rudest 
and most violent manner, assaulted the mass 
in the parochial church. At the Christmas 
festival he and his adherents cast the pictures 
and crucifixes out of the church and burnt 
them, dashed the altars to pieces, abolished 
the candles, hymns and ceremonies, rejected 
the use of chalice and patens, went to com- 
munion without previously announcing them- 
selves or being examined, and helped them- 
selves to the host. They did this from sheer 
audacity, without having instructed the people 
by preaching, without the consent of the gov- 
ernment, and without caring that offence was 
given to the weak. They claimed that the 
first commandment and Christian liberty im- 



— 117 — 

pelled them to this course, and that they were 
filled with the Holy Spirit ; and they con- 
demned all as heretics who differed with them. 
Carlstadt even declared all science superfluous, 
desired to be no longer styled doctor, but sim- 
ply neighbor Andrew, and advised the stu- 
dents to go and learn trades. One of his 
most resolute followers, the rector of the boys' 
school, went so far as to call from the school 
window to the assembled citizens that they 
should take their children away from school. 
Moreover, fanatics came to Wittenberg from 
Zwickau, who boasted that they were called 
by a clear voice of G-od to teach, that they 
had familiar conversations with God, that 
they could see into the future, in short, that 
they were prophets and apostles. 

Luther sought to allay these disturbances 
by writings, but in vain ; they became con- 
stantly worse. Things came to such a pass 
that only those were considered Christians 
who ridiculed the priests, ate meat on Friday, 
pulled down pictures, &c. Then his congre- 
gation in a letter earnestly entreated Luther to 
come back. He was under the ban of the 
pope and the interdict of the emperor ; the 
elector had given him permission only in ex- 
treme necessity to return to Wittenberg, be- 
cause he could not protect him there ; but in 
spite of all dangers he hastened to Wittenberg, 
early in March, 1522. To pacify the elector 
he wrote to him a letter full of the joyous he- 
roism of faith: "It must be so if we would 



— 118 — 

have the word of God, that not only Annas 
and Caiphas rage, but also that Judas appear 
among the apostles and satan among the Sons 
of God/' "I am conscious that if matters 
stood in Leipzig as they do in Wittenberg, I 
would go there though it rained duke Georges 
nine days incessantly, and each one were nine 
times more furious than duke George." — 
"These things are written to your electoral 
Grace in the assurance that I go to Witten- 
berg under much higher protection than that 
of the elector. I do not intend either to ask 
your Grace's protection. Nay I hold that I 
can protect your Grace rather than your Grace 
can me. Indeed, if I knew that your Grace 
could or would protect me I would not come. 
In this matter no sword shall or can assist : 
God alone must help here, without all human 
care and aid. Therefore he who believes most 
can here afford most protection/' 

As soon as Luther reached Wittenberg, on 
the 7th of March, he attacked the fanaticism 
of Carlstadt with the word of God, and by 
means of eight sermons, delivered in as many 
consecutive days, he restored the peace of the 
Church. He then told his hearers that they 
were wanting in the fruit of faith, charity, 
which patiently bears with the neighbor's in- 
firmities, and kindly instructs him, but does 
not gruffly snarl at him. External improve- 
ments, he tells them, are very well, but they 
must be introduced in order, without tumult 
and scandal, not too hastily. "Because I 



— 119 — 

cannot pour faith into the heart/' he says, CC I 
cannot and should not force any person to it, 
for it is God alone who causes it to live in the 
heart. To force it by law only produces a 
sham, an external thing, an imitation, a hu- 
man ordinance, the result of which is nothing 
but saints in mere semblance, or hypocrites. — 
For in this case there is no heart, no faith, no 
love. We must first gain the hearts of the 
people, which is done by using the word of 
God, preaching the Gospel, showing the peo- 
ple their errors. He that will heed it let him 
heed it ; he that will not, remains without. — 
Iu this way one receives the Word into his 
heart to-day, another to-morrow, and so they 
turn away from the mass, of themselves. — 
Thus God accomplishes more with His Word 
than you and I and all the w^orld could accom- 
plish with our force combined. For God 
takes possession of the heart and so the whole 
man is gained ; then the evil must fall and be 
abandoned of itself/' Even Carlstadt, whom 
Luther treated with great forbearance, now 
kept quiet for several years, although in his 
heart he harbored a bitter grudge against Lu- 
ther. The Zwickau prophets withdrew from 
Wittenberg, but, in their rage against Luther 
for despising theii spirit, they wrote him a 
letter full of abuse and execration. 



— 120 — 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
The Peasant War. 

These heavenly prophets, also called Ana- 
baptists, now scattered the poison of their fa- 
naticism among the people with the greatest 
zeal. The most active among them was Thom- 
as Muenzer, with whom Carlstadt, who in- 
troduced the soul-destroyiug error that 
Christ's body and blood are not substantially 
present in the Holy Supper, associated him- 
self in 1524. By their atrocious sermons they 
deceived the people to such an extent that 
they not only fell away from the word of God, 
but also rebelled against the government. — 
To check their violence Luther himself went 
about preaching to the people, but only with 
partial success. In Orlamuend the rage of 
the populace against him was so great that 
he was compelled to flee, while some followed 
him with the execration : "Depart in the 
name of a thousand devils, and may you 
break your neck before you get out of the 
city." 

As eaily as 1524, the peasants in Suabia 
had revolted, and the flame of rebellion, in 
1525, spread through Franconia along the 
Ehine, and thence nearly over all Germany. 
The peasants had banded together to form 
w^hat they called a Christian Union, had stated 
their grievances in 12 articles, and had chosen 
Luther as arbiter. He declared many of their 
demands just and reasonable. In their first 



— 121 — 

complaint they asked for the congregations 
the right to elect their own pastors. In re- 
gard to this Luther said : "This article is just. 
The right of electing pastors you cannot with 
any semblance of justice deny. To this no 
government can or should he opposed. Nay, 
the government must not prohibit each one's 
teaching and believing as he chooses, provided 
that he does not teach disorder and revolt." 
But he at the same time shows them what a hein- 
ous sin they commit by rising against the civil 
authorities: "You say that the government 
is wicked and intolerable, forbidding you to 
have the Gospel, oppressing you in temporal 
things, and thus ruining you in body and soul. 
Answer : the wickedness and injustice of the 
government does not justify conspiracy and re- 
bellion. I say this, my dear friends, faithfully 
to warn you, that in this affair you must cease 
to use the Christian name and boast of Chris- 
tian right. For no matter how just your 
cause is, it befits not a Christian to quarrel 
and fight, but he must suffer the wrong and 
bear the evil. This cannot be changed. 1 
Cor. vi, 7 Because you are determined to de- 
fend your own cause and will not bear vio- 
lence and wrong, you may do and omit what 
God permits ; but the Christian name, the 
Christian name, I say, leave that unsullied, 
and use not that as a cloak of your impatient, 
contentious, unchristian proceeding. For 
Christians do not maintain their cause with 
the sword and rifle, but with the cross and 



— 122 — 

suffering, as their captain, Christ, does not 
bear the sword, but hangs upon the cross. — 
Hence too, their victory does not consist in 
ascendency and power, but in submission and 
weakness/' But just as sharply Luther re- 
buked the ungodly tyranny of the princes. 
"In the first place we have no person on earth 
to thank for these disorders and disturbances 
but you princes and lords, especially you blind 
bishops and stupid priests and monks, who in 
your obduracy do not cease to this day to rave 
and rage against the Holy Gospel, although 
you know it to be true and cannot confute it. 
And in the civil government you do nothing 
but practice extortion to pamper your pomp 
and pride, until the poor common people can- 
not and will not bear it any longer. — 
For this, my dear sirs, you must know, that 
God so directs events that your madness can- 
not, and will not, and should not be endured 
always. You must amend and let the word 
of God have its way ; if you will not do it 
voluntarily by peaceful means, you must do it 
ruinously by means of violence." "It is to 
me a source of the greatest sorrow," he says 
to the princes and peasants, "so that I would 
give my life to have it otherwise, that two in- 
evitable evils must result on both sides. For 
as neither party could engage in the contest 
with a good conscience it must follow, in the 
first place, that those who are slain are eter- 
nally lost in body and soul, as they die under 
God's wrath without repentance and without 



- 123 - 

grace, and there is no help for it. For the 
lords would be fighting to maintain their tyr- 
anny and their persecution of the Gospel, and 
their oppression of the poor^ or to aid those 
who are engaged in this wickedness. This is 
abominable injustice, and those who are guilty 
ot it must be eternally lost. On the other 
hand the peasants would be fighting to de- 
fend their revolt and their abuse of the Chris- 
tian name, which is also fighting against God, 
and those who die in such a contest must also 
be eternally lost, and there is no help for it." 
Luther admonished the government to ad- 
just the matter amicably with the peasants. — 
He also went himself to Thuringia for the pur- 
pose of preventing, by his preaching, the out- 
break of a rebellion, twice endangering his 
life in the effort. But the peasants despised 
his faithful counsel, and everywhere raged fu- 
riously. They robbed, plundered, laid waste, 
burnt, and murdered wherever they appeared, 
destroying above 200 castles and many clois- 
ters. Upon their enemies they took most 
bloody vengeance. For example in Weins- 
berg they impaled 70 knights amid the most 
horrible tortures. Then Luther issued his 
very severe tract "Against the rapacious and 
murderous Peasants/' in which he counselled 
the government once more to offer the insurg- 
ents an amicable settlement, and if this should 
be of no avail, to put them down with the 
sword. Thus the peasants were routed every- 
where by the princes. Thomas Muenzer, the 



— 124 — 

servant of the servants of God with the sword 
of Gideon, as he called himself, was defeated 
on the 5. of May, 1535, near Frankenhausen ; 
of his band, consisting of 8,000, some were 
slain and the rest made prisoners ; he himself 
was beheaded. 



CHAPTER XXV 

Luther's Marriage. 

According to the laws of the pope, none of 
those who have taken so-called spiritual orders, 
such as monks, nuns, priests, &c, are permit- 
ted to marry. Luther on the contrary proved 
from the word of God that matrimony is a di- 
vine institution, and that all men are at liberty 
to marry ; he also advised others to enter the 
matrimonial state. But as for himself, he 
wrote yet in 1524 : "I have no disposition to 
marry, because I stand in daily expectation of 
being executed as a heretic/' But God ordered 
otherwise. On the 13. of June, 1525, he was 
married to Catherine von Bora, who, having 
become convinced of the propriety of the step, 
by reading Luther's writings, had left the 
cloister two years before. Luther was prompt- 
ed to this by the wish of his aged father, and 
by his desire to confirm his teaching by his 
practice. He himself testifies that God sud- 
denly and wonderfully led him into matrimo- 
ny, while he was engaged in other thoughts ; 
"for," he says, "I feel no carnal love and 



— 125 — 

longing, but have a delight in matrimony as 
an institution and order of God." The pa- 
pists of course were highly offended at the 
monk's marrying a nun ; but Luther was un- 
concerned about them, saying, in the confi- 
dence of faith : "I would cheerfully give them 
more offense if I only knew something more 
that would please God and mortify them." 

In his married life Luther sought to exem- 
plify all that he had taught in this regard, en- 
deavoring as a true bishop to rule his house 
well. He and his wife cordially loved and 
honored each other. God gave them six chil- 
dren, John, Elizabeth, Magdalene, Martin, 
Paul, Margaret — three sons and three daugh- 
ters. His children, in his manifold cares and 
anxieties respecting Church affairs, afforded 
him great delight ; he loved them tenderly, 
brought them up in the nurture and admoni- 
tion of the Lord, and daily repeated with them 
the Ten Commandments, the Creed and the 
Lord's Prayer ; he also frequently sported 
with them and became a child among the chil- 
dren. Thus he addressed the following letter 
to his little son John when he was four years 
old: 

"Grace and peace in Christ ! My dear little 
son : I am glad to see that you learn well and 
pray diligently. Go on in this way, my boy ; 
when I come home I will bring you something 
pretty. I know of a beautiful, happy garden 
in which there are many children with golden 
coats who gather nice apples under the trees, 



— 126 — 

and pears, and cherries, and plums, and who 
sing and skip and are merry. They have pret- 
ty little ponies, too, with golden bridles and 
silver saddles. I asked the man to whom the 
garden belongs who these children are. He 
said they are the children who love to pray 
and learn and who are pious. Then I said : 
Dear man, I also have a son and his name is 
Johnny Luther ; may he not come into the 
garden too, and eat of these nice apples and 
pears, and ride these pretty ponies and play 
with these chidlren ? And the man said : 
if he is a good boy and loves to pray and to 
learn he may come, and Lippus and Jos too ; 
and when they all come together they shall 
also have fifes, tymbals and lutes, and all 
kinds of music on stringed instruments, and 
shall dance too and shoot with little cross- 
bows. And he showed me there a little mead- 
ow in the garden arranged for dancing, and it 
was hanging full of golden fifes, tymbals and 
nice silver cross-bows. But it was early and 
the children had not had their breakfast yet, 
so I could not stay for the dance, and I said to 
the man : My good Sir, I will go right away 
and write all this to my dear little boy, Johnny, 
so that he may pray diligently and learn well, 
and be pious, that he may come into this gar- 
den. But he has an aunt Lena, whom he 
must also bring along. Then the man said : 
it is all right ; go and write so to him. There- 
fore Johnny, my dear little boy, learn and 
pray with good cheer, and tell Lippus and Jos 



— 127 — 

to learn and pray also, then you will all' go into 
the garden together. With this I commend 
you to Almighty God. Greet aunt Lena and 
give her a kiss for me. In the year 1530. 
Your dear father, Martin Luther/' 

At the same time Luther was very strict 
with his children. When his son John was 
12 years old he once committed a wrong, on 
account of which Luther for three days refused 
to have anything to do with him, notwithstand- 
ing that he humbly asked forgiveness in writ- 
ing. And when his mother, Dr. Jonas and 
Dr. Teutleben interceded for him, Luther said, 
ft l would rather have my son dead than diso- 
bedient. St. Paul did not without reason say 
that a bishop must rule his own house well 
and have obedient children, that other people 
may be edified through them, follow their ex- 
ample and not be offended. We ministers are 
honored so much that we might set a good ex- 
ample. But our untrained children cause oth- 
ers to take offense and bad boys commit sin in 
virtue of our privileges." 

Luther's house was not exempt from the 
cross. Once his dear wife was at the point of 
death, but God heard his prayers in her be- 
half. With many tears he saw two of his 
dear daughters depart this life, Elizabeth in 
her first, and Magdalene in her fourteenth 
year. For the latter he wrote the following 
epitaph : 



— 128 — 

"I, Lena, Dr. Luther's daughter, here 

Am laid with saints to rest till Christ appear, 

I who, from my first breath, 

Had been an heir of death, 
Now live, and all is well forever, 
Since Thou, Christ, didst me deliver. " 



CHAPTER XXYI. 

The Marburg Conference. 

When the Reformation began, all who re- 
ceived the Gospel were perfectly united in the 
pure doctrine. Carlstadt was the first who 
introduced dissension by teaching that the 
body and blood of Christ are not truly present 
under the bread and wine. This error was 
adopted also by Ulrich Zwingli, pastor at Zu- 
rich in Switzerland, who maintained that the 
words, "this is my body" meant no more than 
"this signifies my body." As the poison of 
this error kept spreading constantly further, 
Luther preached and taught against it with 
earnestness and with severity ; for a severe 
wound requires a sharp knife. In 1527 he 
wrote the excellent book "That the words, 
'This is my body' still stand firm against the 
fanatics," and in 1528 his "Large Confession 
concerning the Holy Supper." But the Zwin- 
glians continued in their error and subsequent- 
ly separated from the Church of the pure 
faith and organized a Church of their own, 
called the Reformed. For the purpose of re- 



— 129 — 

moving this dissension, the landgrave Philip 
of Hesse arranged a colloquy between the 
contending parties, which took place in Mar- 
burg on the first three days in October, 1529. 
Among others, Luther, Melanchthon and Jo- 
nas were present of the one side, and Zwingll 
and (Ecolampadius of the other. In the first 
place Luther urged against the opponents that 
they not only teach false doctrine concerning 
the Eucharist, but that they also inculcate the 
following errors : That Christ is not true, es- 
sential God ; that original sin is not sin ; that 
original sin is not forgiven in Holy Baptism ; 
that the Holy Spirit is not communicated by 
the word and the sacraments ; that justifica- 
tion takes place not only by faith, but also by 
works. Luther and his coadjutors instructed 
them on these points and they yielded in all 
of them. 

Upon this the Reformed endeavored to 
prove that in the Holy Supper the body and 
blood of Christ are not present. The first ar- 
gument adduced by (Ecolampiclius was that 
our Lord says, in John vi, 63, "the flesh prof- 
iteth nothing/' and therefore there can be no 
flesh in the sacrament, as the fleshly reception 
would be without profit. Luther replied that 
Christ does not here speak of His flesh, for 
He says before that His flesh imparts eternal 
life and that His flesh is meat indeed ; but 
He refers to our flesh and calls that unprofit- 
able, as is evident from the antithesis : "it is 
the Spirit that quickeneth ;" it would be 
9* 



- 130 — 

dreadful to say tliat the flesh of Christ profit- x 
eth nothing. 

The second argument of the Reformed was 
drawn from reason. They maintained that a 
body could not be in two places at the same 
time and that accordingly, as the body sitteth 
at the right hand of the Father in heaven, it 
could not be present in the sacrament on earth. 
Luther replied that the reason of man cannot 
judge the power and glory of God ; that 
Christ has assumed the human nature, which 
must therefore, according to the Scriptures, 
have part in the Divine attributes and glory ; 
and that consequently the human nature 
of Christ must be omnipresent, and His body 
and blood can accordingly be present in the 
Holy Supper. 

Zwingli answered that God does not ask us 
to believe absurdities. To this objection of 
unbelieving reason Luther answered in the 
power of faith : "What God speaks is always 
for our salvation, even though He should com- 
mand us to eat crab apples or pick up straws.' * 
When Zwingli still persisted in maintaining 
it to be absurd that such a great miracle 
should be performed by wicked priests, Luther 
explained : "This is not done by the merits 
of the priest, but according to Divine order. 
It is done because Christ commanded it. — 
Thus it is to be held concerning the power of 
the word and all the sacraments that they are 
powerful and produce their effect not by the 
merit and holiness of the priest or minister, 



— 131 — 

but by the power of God's ordinance and com- 
mandment. To maintain that the sacraments 
are not efficacious when administered by wick- 
ed priests, is a Donatistic error/' To this 
clear account of Luther Zwingli made no re- 
ply- 

A transition was then made to the third ar- 
gument, which QEcolampadius presented thus: 
"The sacraments are signs, and therefore they 
must signify something ; hence we must con- 
clude that the body of Christ is here merely 
signified, not present." Luther had at the 
beginning written the words of our Lord : 
"This is my body," upon the table before him, 
as his firm and sure ground. He admitted 
that the sacraments are signs ; "but," he said, 
"we must not interpret them otherwise than 
our Lord. That the sacraments are signs 
means especially that they signify the annexed 
promises. So circumcision signifies especially 
the word which is annexed, that God will be 
gracious. If any one should seek another sig- 
nification, as that circumcision signifies the 
mortification of the flesh, it would be futile 
whilst he despises the promise signified, which 
is the chief signification. Therefore we must 
not deal wantonly with significations, but ob- 
serve how God's word explains itself." 

But when Luther saw that the opponents 
persisted in their opinions with increasing te- 
nacity, he closed the conference on his part, 
thanking Zwingli andOEcolampadius that they 
had conducted the discussion so kindly* But 



— 132 — 

he added, at the same time, that as they would 
not dismiss their opinions he must commit 
them to the judgment of God and pray that 
He would enlighten them and bring them 
back into the way of truth. 

The landgrave was an attentive listener du- 
ring the whole discussion, and, convinced of 
the arguments for the truth, he said publicly : 
"Now I shall believe the simple words of 
Christ rather than the acute thoughts of men/' 
(Ecolampadius, also, as Selnecker relates, ex- 
perienced qualms of conscience on account of 
his error. For when the landgrave said to 
him : "Doctor, the Wittenbergers after all 
stand on sure texts ; you have nothing but 
comments and explanations ; and if the oth- 
ers have better ground than you, why do you 
hesitate ?" he answered with a sigh : "Gra- 
cious lord, I would that this hand had been 
taken off before I had written a word upon the 
subject." 

The landgrave, however, urged that an 
agreement should be made before they sepa- 
rated. Zwingli approached with tears in his 
eyes and declared : "God knows there is no 
man in the world with whom I would rather 
agree than with you, Luther, and your Wit- 
tenbergers/' He and the others of his party 
offered to teach, with Luther and his friends, 
that the body of Christ is really present in 
the sacrament, but in a spiritual manner, if 
these would then recognize them as brethren. 
Luther then replied : "I also desire to be in 



— 133 — 

conflict with no one ; but God's word and the 
truth must be more precious than all the 
world's friendship." He further said to them, 
"You have a different spirit from ours," and 
censuringly asked them how they could consid- 
er him and his friends brethren while they con- 
sidered them in error ; he regarded this as a 
sign that they did not deem their tenets very 
important. Thus the Reformed, as Luther 
said, had to leave the field as heretics ; for as 
they would not submit to the truth, the Lu- 
therans could not have fraternal fellowship 
with them. But they extended to the oppo- 
nents the hand of peace and charity, as Luth- 
er writes, so that the harsh writings and words 
might cease, and that each might present their 
own doctrine without railing, though not 
without refutation and defence. 

It was in this year also that Luther wrote 
his Smaller and Larger Catechisms, of which 
Matthesius justly said : "If Dr. Luther had 
done nothing more than write these Cate- 
chisms, the whole world could never sufficiently 
thank him for it." 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

The Presentation of the Augsburg Confession. 

As religious affairs were to be considered at 
the Diet of Augsburg, the elector of Saxony 
appointed Luther, Melanchthon, Jonas and Bu- 
genhagen to draw up a brief and clear sum- 



— 134 — 

mary of the principal doctrines of the Chris- 
tian faith. This was done in a document, the 
basis of which were 17 articles previously pre- 
pared by Luther. This was subsequently still 
further developed by Melanchthon, with the 
consent of Luther and the other confessors, 
and thus originated the Augsburg Confession, 
concerning which Luther says: "X have read 
the Apology of Philip from beginning to end ; 
it pleases me exceedingly well, and I know of 
nothing by which I could better it, or change 
it, nor would I be fitted to do it, for I cannot 
move so moderately and gently. May Christ 
our Lord help, that it may bring forth much 
and great fruit, as we hope and pray. Amen." 

Before his departure the elector ordered 
prayers in the Church throughout his prov- 
ince for a prosperous issue of the Diet. When 
the theologians declared to him that they 
would rather appear before the emperor alone 
and present their cause, that he might not be 
endangered, he answered: "God forbid that 
I should be excluded from your company ; I 
will confess my Lord Christ with you/' Mel- 
anchthon, Jonas and Spalatin went with him 
to Augsburg, whilst Luther remained at the 
castle Ehrenburg, near Coburg. 

On the 15th of June, the evening before the 
festival of Corpus Christi, the emperor, in 
great pomp and glory, entered Augsburg. — 
That very evening yet he desired of the evan- 
gelical princes that they should take part in 
the Corpus Christi procession on the following 



— 135 — 

day. But these princes positively refused, de- 
claring that they were not disposed by their 
participation to encourage such ordinances, 
which are manifestly in opposition to the 
word of God and the command of Christ. — 
And when the emperor persisted in his de- 
mand the evangelical margrave, George of 
Brandenburg, solemnly declared : ' 'Rather 
than deny my God and His Gospel, I would 
kneel here before your Majesty and have my 
head severed from my body." The emperor 
graciously replied : "Dear prince, not head 
off, not head off!" 

So the ever memorable day approached on 
which the little band of Lutherans should con- 
fess the Lord Jesus Christ. On the 20th of 
June the elector John the Constant invited 
his brethren in the faith to his rooms and earn- 
estly exhorted them to stand firm. "All 
counsels that are against God," he said, 
"must come to naught, and the good cause 
must finally triumph, as is certain from the 
Scriptures, Is. viii, 9." Early on the fol- 
lowing morning, alone in his closet, he pre- 
pared himself, by the reading of Psalms and 
earnest prayer, for the important step. 

The emperor had finally consented that the 
Confession of the Evangelicals should be pub- 
licly read. On Saturday, June 25th, 1530, at 
3 o'clock in the afternoon, the Diet assembled 
in the episcopal palace, the chapel of which 
was selected for the reading of the Confession. 
The highest dignitaries of Christendom are 



— 136 — 

present, and the German emperor Charles V., 
presides, whose dominion extends from the 
North to the South of Europe, and across the 
ocean to Peru and Mexico in America. The 
electors, prelates, princes and estates of the 
German nation have assembled, and foreign 
nations have sent their envoys and the pope 
his legates, to hear that Confession. The 
Evangelical confessors, the elector John the 
Constant with his excellent son, the electoral 
prince John Frederick, the margrave George 
of Brandenburg, the dukes Ernest and Francis 
of Lueneburg, the landgrave Philip of Hesse, 
the prince Wolfgang of Anhalt, and the dele- 
gates of the cities of Nuremburg and Reutlin- 
gen now joyfully arise, and in their name the 
two electoral chancellors, Dr. Brueck and Dr. 
Baier, the former with the Confession in Latin, 
the latter in German, proceed to the middle of 
the room. The emperor asks that the Latin 
copy be read ; but the elector John replies 
that they are upon German ground, and he 
hopes that his majesty will permit them to use 
the German tongue. And now, while the as- 
sembly is all attention, Dr. Baier reads the 
Augsburg Confession in German so slowly and 
so loudly that the multitude congregated in 
the courtyard could distinctly understand near- 
ly every word. 

Even the emperor, as well as the papistic 
estates, were moved by this glorious Confes- 
sion. Their opinion that the Lutherans re- 
nounced the ancient Christian faith, was at 



— 137 — 

once refuted. The emperor had the informa- 
tion conveyed to the Protestant princes that 
he had graciously heard their confession of 
faith. Duke William of Bavaria could not 
refrain from addressing the elector in friendly 
words after hearing the confession. To Dr. 
Eck, who was present with them, he said re- 
proachfully: "Luther's doctrine had been 
represented as far otherwise than I have just 
heard in their Confession. You have consoled 
me with the assurance that their doctrine 
could be refuted. " When Eck replied: "I 
would undertake to refute it with the fathers, 
but not with the Scriptures/' the duke an- 
swered : "I understand it then : the Luther- 
ans are entrenched in the Scriptures, and we 
are aside of them/' The learned bishop Stadi- 
on of Augsburg publicly acknowledged: "What 
has been recited is the pure plain truth, and 
we cannot deny it." Even the violent perse- 
cutor of the Gospel, duke Henry of Bruns- 
wick, invited Melanchthon to dinner. "I re- 
joice/' says Luther, that I have lived to see 
the hour in which Christ is publicly preached 
by his confessors, before an assembly so illus- 
trious, in this glorious Confession. Herein is 
fulfilled what the Scripture saith : 'I will de- 
clare thy testimonies in the presence of kings.' 
Yea, that will also be fulfilled which follows : 
'and shall not be put to shame.' 'For he that 
confesses me before men,' says He who cannot 
lie, 'him will I also confess before my Father 
who is in heaven.' Spalatin also calls it "a 



— 138 — 

confession the like of which has not been 
heard not only for a thousand years, but not 
since the world exists. In no history and in 
no ancient father is anything like it to be 
found." And in the same spirit Matthesius 
testifies : "Since the days of the apostles there 
has never been a greater achievement and a 
more magnificent confession than that which 
was made before the whole Eoman empire at 
Augsburg." It was soon translated into 
many languages and spread, in transcribed 
and printed copies, over all lands. Many 
were thus brought to an acquaintance with 
the Lutheran doctrine, and perceived its agree- 
ment with the Holy Scriptures and the doc- 
trine of the ancient Church, and joyfully em- 
braced it. For the Augsburg Confession is a 
pure, correct and incontrovertible confession 
of the Divine truth of Holy Scripture ; hence 
also, it is the flag around which all true Lu- 
therans in all lands rally ; and the Lutheran 
Church until this day recognizes only those as 
her members who, without any reservation, ac- 
cept all the articles of the unaltered Augsburg 
Confession. The papistic theologians, at the 
command of the emperor, prepared a work in 
which they endeavored to refute this Confes- 
sion ; but Melanchthon victoriously defended 
it against their attacks in the "Apology," 
which the Evangelical Lutheran Church also 
adopted as one of her confessions. 

In the meantime Luther was not idle in Co- 
burg, but took an active part in all the pro- 



— 139 — 

ceedings. He gave to his friends at Augsburg 
good Christian advice, rich consolation and 
great encouragement. He also wrote a num- 
ber of excellent works, among others an expo- 
sition of the 118. Psalm, which he called his 
favorite Psalm because it had ministered com- 
fort to him in so many troubles. The 17. 
verse of this Psalm : "I shall not die, but live, 
and declare the works of the Lord," he wrote 
upon the walls that he might always have it 
before his eyes to comfort him. At this time, 
also, he composed, on the basis of the 46. 
Psalm, his song of victory : "A safe stronghold 
our God is still/' together with the melody, 
and he sang it daily. He also frequently re- 
ceived absolution and the holy communion. 

Above all, Luther prayed diligently that the 
Gospel might triumph, although to mere rea- 
son this seemed at that time an impossibility ; 
for Satan and the Romish Antichrist had 
armed themselves terribly against the Gospel 
and were determined to destroy it at all haz- 
ards. On the pope's side were arrayed the 
powerful emperor and the mightiest kings and 
princes of the earth, and the pope and his car- 
dinals^ bishops, monks and learned men ex- 
erted all their powers to induce them to ex- 
terminate the Lutherans. It thus seemed 
certain that the little band of evangelical con- 
fessors would be overthrown. But Luther 
prayed all the more fervently that the Al- 
mighty would help them. "For inasmuch as 
this Diet/' writes Matthesius, "was directed 



— 140 — 

chiefly against Dr. Luther's doctrine, and 
against those who assisted in preaching this 
doctrine, or who in their dominions and cities 
adopted it as true, as the books of the Eoman 
doctors in reference to this matter clearly de- 
monstrate, our doctor was also at his post, 
like Moses when he sent his faithful servant 
Joshua to war against king Amalek. For Dr. 
Luther also held in his hand the staff and rod 
of God, and came before the face of God, and, 
in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
lifted up his holy and weary hands, with which 
he had severely borne down and weakened the 
papacy, and cried day and night to God that 
He would maintain the honor of His name, 
His holy Gospel and kingdom, and preserve 
in the true faith and pure doctrine the true 
Joshuites and German knights, who, togeth- 
er with the angels, were at Augsburg waging 
war against Antichrist, and that He would 
strengthen and comfort them with His Holy 
Spirit, and guard them and protect them by 
His holy angels ; as also all true Christians at 
that time, in the whole Roman empire, in all 
the schools and churches, faithfully assisted 
Dr. Luther and his friends with their cries 
and sighs ; and indeed Christ, the only Pro- 
tector and Guardian of His Church, upon 
whose word, blood, merits and oath Dr. Luther 
laid his hands, and based and offered up his 
prayer, also assisted with earnest and unspeak- 
able sighs, repeating His eternal prayer before 
His God and Father." 



— 141 — 

Veit Dietrich, Luther's associate at Coburg, 
thus wrote to Augsburg, to his teacher Mel- 
anchthon concerning it : "I cannot sufficiently 
admire this man's noble constancy, joyful 
courage, faith and hope in these distressing 
times ; but he also incessantly sustains them 
by a careful consideration of God's word. No 
day passes on which he does not spend at least 
three hours, and these the most suitable for 
study, in prayer. Once I had the good fortune 
to hear him pray ; what faith was there in 
his words ! He prayed with such reverence 
that it was manifest he was speaking with God, 
and yet again with such faith and such hope 
that it seemed as if he were speaking with a 
father or a friend. 'I know,' said he, 'that 
Thou art our God and Father. I am certain, 
therefore, that thou wilt bring to nought the 
persecutors of Thy children ; if thou dost not 
do it, the danger is Thine as well as ours. — 
Surely the whole matter is Thy own ; we have 
been constrained to enter upon it ; it is for 
Thee to protect it.' Thus I heard him pray in 
a distinct voice, while I stood at a distance. 
My heart also burned within me with great 
zeal, when I heard him addressing God so 
confidently, so earnestly and so devoutly, and 
in his prayer so urgently insisting upon the 
promises in the Psalms, as being certain that 
that for which he prayed would be accom- 
plished. Therefore I doubt not but that „ his 
prayer will be of great service in the desper- 
ately difficult business of this Diet." 



— 142 — 

Luther at the same time wrote the most 
powerful letters of consolation to his friends 
at Augsburg. He assured the elector that it 
was a sign of God's love to him that He grant- 
ed him His word so richly and deemed him 
worthy to suffer reproach and enmity on ac- 
count of it. "Besides this/' he continued, 
"a merciful God shows Himself even more 
gracious by causing His word to be so mighty 
and fruitful in the dominions of your electo- 
ral grace. For truly in the dominions of your 
electoral grace are to be found more and bet- 
ter pastors and preachers than in any other 
country in the world, who most faithfully 
preach the pure doctrine and assist in preserv- 
ing so admirable a peace. The tender youth, 
male and female, now grow up so well instruct- 
ed in the Catechism and the Scriptures, that 
my heart delights to behold how the boys and 
girls are able to pray, to exercise their faith, 
and to speak more of God and of Christ than 
all the inmates of convents, cloisters and 
schools formerly could, or can even now. — 
Truly, such young people form a beautiful 
paradise in the dominion of your electoral 
grace, the like of which there is not in the 
world besides. And all this God has done in 
the vicinity of your electoral grace, as an evi- 
dence that He is graciously disposed towards 
your electoral grace. As if He would say : 
<3ehold, dear duke, I here commit to thee my 
noblest treasure, my delightful paradise ; thou 
shalt preside over them as a father, for under 



— 143 — 

thy name, protection and government I wish, 
them to be, and I confer the honor upon thee 
to he my gardener and steward/ " 

Melanchthon was especially in need of his 
encouragement, as he was at that time tor- 
mented with cares. Luther wrote to him that 
he hated such cares exceedingly. "That they 
thus rule in your heart/' he said, "is caused, 
not by the greatness of this business, but by 
the greatness of our unbelief. But let it be as 
great as it may, He also is great who conducts 
it, and from whom it proceeds, for it is not 
our cause. Why therefore do you thus inces- 
santly torment yourself? If the cause is false, 
let us recant ; but if it is true, why charge 
Him with falsehood who with so many prom- 
ises commands us to be quiet and calmly to 
wait ? 'Cast thy care upon the Lord/ He 
tells us. What can the devil do more than 
kill us ? Christ has once died for our cause, 
but for righteousness and truth He will not 
die ; on the contrary, for this He lives and 
rules." 

When Melanchthon, notwithstanding this, 
continued to fear and grieve, Luther cheered 
him with the words : "Grace and peace in 
Christ ! I scarcely know, dear Philip, what to 
write to you, so greatly perplexed am I on ac- 
count of your unhallowed and foolish cares, for 
I know that I preach to deaf ears. The cause is 
that you, to your great injury, believe only 
yourself, and not others. I can say with truth 
that I have been in greater distress than, I 



- 144 — 

trust, you ever will be, and I wish no man, 
not even those who rave so much against us, 
even if they are knaves and tyrants, to be- 
come equal to me in this. And notwithstand- 
ing this I have often, in such distress, been 
comforted through the word of a brother, now 
through Pomuier's ; now through yours, now 
through Jonas' or another's. Therefore do 
you also hear us, who do not speak according 
to the flesh or the world, but undoubtedly ac- 
cording to God through the Holy Ghost. — 
Though we are insignificant^ beloved, do not 
on any account let Him be insignificant w r ho 
speaks through us. Is it then false that God 
has given His Son for us ? Then may the 
devil or one of his creatures be a man in my 
stead. But if it be true, why do we then 
burden ourselves with pernicious fears, trem- 
bling, anxiety and sadness ? Just as if He 
would not be with us in these little things, 
when He, nevertheless, has given His Son for 
us, or as if Satan were mightier than He. I 
know to a certainty that our cause is right and 
true, yea, that it is the cause of Christ and of 
God Himself, who have no sins to blush for, as 
I, poor sinner must blush and tremble. There- 
fore lam an entirely calm spectator, and do 
not at all regard the threatenings and ravings 
of the papists. If we fall, Christ falls with 
us, He, the Ruler of the world ; and if He 
fall, I would sooner fall with Christ than stand 
with the emperor. Therefore I pray you, for 
Christ's sake, not to discard the divine prom- 



— 145 — 

ises and consolations when lie says : 'Be of 
good courage, I have overcome the world/ — 
It is not false, of that I am assured, that 
Christ has overcome the world. Why, there- 
fore, do we fear the vanquished world as if it 
were the vanquisher ? May the Lord Jesus 
sustain you, that your faith may not fail, but 
increase and obtain the victory/' 

To the chancellor Brueck he wrote in the 
joy of faith, the following letter : "I recently 
witnessed two miracles. In the first I be- 
held, through the window, the stars in the 
heavens, and the whole beautiful arch of God, 
and yet nowhere perceived any pillars upon 
which the Architect had based such arch ; yet 
did the heavens not break down, and this arch 
still stands firm. Now, there are some who 
search for the pillars, and would like to touch 
and to feel them. But because they cannot do 
this they tremble with fear, as if the heavens 
would certainly fall, for no other reason than 
that they cannot touch or see the pillars. If 
they could touch these the heavens would; 
stand firm In the other I beheld great,,cfeu£Q 
clouds hanging over us like a mighty ocean,, 
and yet I saw no base for them to rest upon, 
and no vats in which they were contained; 
still they fell not, but merely grimly greeted 
us and fled away. When they had passed 
away there shone forth both the base and our 
roof, which had borne them up, the rainbow.. 
That, truly, was a frail, slight, insignificant, 

10* 



— 146 — 

base and roof, so that it also disappeared in 
the clouds, and seemed more like the shadowy 
images seen through painted glass than such 
a mighty base, thus causing one almost to des- 
pair as much of the base as of the great mass 
of water. Nevertheless it was evident that 
this apparently frail image bore up the mass of 
water and protected us. Yet there are some 
who more regard and fear the mass and heavi- 
ness of water and the clouds, than this frail 
airy image ; for they would like to feel the 
power of this image, and because they cannot 
do this, they fear that the clouds will cause 
an eternal flood. Thus I have been con- 
strained in a friendly way, to jest with your 
honor, and yet to write in seriousness ; for it 
afforded me especial joy to learn that your hon- 
or was more than all the rest of good courage 
and unwavering confidence in this our hour of 
trial. 

When the papists negotiated with our peo- 
ple res23ecting an agreement in doctrine, Lu- 
ther faithfully warned his friends* To Spala- 
tin he wrote : "I understand that you have 
reluctantly undertaken the strange task of 
uniting the pope and Luther ; but the pope, I 
ween, will be unwilling, and Luther begs to 
be excused. Have a care that you do not ig- 
nobly lose your labor. If you accomplish the 
matter in opposition to both, then I shall soon 
follow your example and unite Christ and Bel- 
ial. In short, this negotiation concerning 
union in doctrine displeases me, for such union 



— 147 — 

is wholly impossible as long as the pope will 
not abolish his papacy/' 

He was pleased with Melanchthon that he 
had not admitted it to be a matter of indiffer- 
ence, but a command, to receive the Lord's 
Supper under both kinds. "For it is not in 
our power/' added he, "to establish or to tol- 
erate anything in the Church of God, or in 
the divine worship, which cannot be defended 
by the Lord's word. The shameful word in- 
different my soul loathes ; yea, with this 
word we can easily make all commands and in- 
stitutions of God indifferent ; for if we once 
permit anything to be indifferent in God's 
word, how shall we prevent the rest from be- 
coming indifferent ?" 

But complaints again reached him concern- 
ing his friends at Augsburg, especially con- 
cerning Melanchthon, as if, for the sake of 
peace, they had conceded too much. Luther 
admonished them : do not by any means suf- 
fer divisions to arise among you. Let peace 
be esteemed by us as much as it may, yet is 
the Lord of peace and the umpire in the war 
greater than peace and more to be honored. 
Our duty is not to be apprehensive of future 
war, but our duty is simply to believe and to 
confess." But the suspicion was unfounded, 
and the Lord heard the prayer of Luther that 
He would conduct the confessors back in 
health and strength. 

On the 14th of September, to Luther's great 
joy, duke John Frederick, with count Albert 



— 148 — 

of Mansfield, unexpectedly arrived at Coburg. 
He presented Luther with a gold ring, "But 
I was not born to wear gold/' said Luther, 
"for it immediately fell from my finger to the 
ground, (it being somewhat too large,) and I 
said : Thou art a worm and no man. It 
should have been given to Faber or Eck. — 
Lead suits better for thee or a rope around the 
neck." 

The duke wished to take Luther with him, 
but the latter begged him to let him remain 
there that he might receive his friends on their 
return, to wipe the sweat from their faces after 
such a warm siege. He hoped also soon to 
see them delivered, and thought they had 
done enough. "You have confessed Christ," 
he wrote, "offered peace, born enough calum- 
ny, and have not returned evil for evil ; in 
short, you have worthily performed the holy 
work of God, as it becomes His saints. Ke- 
joice now in the Lord, and be joyful, ye right- 
eous ; look up, and lift up your heads, for your 
redemption draweth nigh. I will laud you as 
faithful members of Christ, and what further 
renown do you want ? Or is it a small mat- 
ter faithfully to have discharged the duties of 
Christ's office, and to have shown yourselves 
His worthy members ? Be it far from you to 
esteem the grace of Christ so lightly. But 
more when we meet." 

Finally he had the pleasure of greeting the 
dear confessors in Coburg. He congratulated 
his elector that by the grace of God he had 



— 149 — 

been delivered from the hell at Augsburg. 
On the way home he with his companions 
stopped with Spalatin in Altenburg. As Mel- 
anchthon there wrote at table, Luther arose 
and, taking from him his pen, said: "We 
serve God not only by labor, but also by quiet 
and rest ; therefore he gave the third com- 
mandment and enjoined the Sabbath/' 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Reformatory Labors. 

Upon Luther's return to Wittenberg he was 
required, notwithstanding his bodily infirm- 
ity, to perform an extraordinary amount of 
labor. The question was again agitated 
whether Lutheran princes and estates could, 
in case of necessity, form a religious league. 
Luther did not favor it, because those who en- 
ter into such alliances usually put their trust 
in men, for which reason also the prophets of 
the Old Testament had so zealously opposed 
them. 

In the year 1531 Luther issued a warning to 
his dear Germans that they should not aid in 
opposing and suppressing the pure doctrine 
of the Gospel. This publication made such 
an impression even upon the emperor, that in 
1632 a general national peace was concluded, 
towards the attainment of which the elector 
John in particular largely contributed. By 
the death of this prince which occurred shortly 



— 150 — 

afterwards, the Lutheran Church was again 
thrown mto deep mourning. He fell asleep 
in the presence of Luther, with the same con- 
fession of Christ which he had made two years 
before in Augsburg. Of this, as well as of 
his other virtues, Luther, in the two funeral 
sermons which he devoted to his memory, 
presents many remarkable evidences. 

Luther now continued without change to 
proclaim the word of the Lord, and published 
in this year also several beautiful works. — 
Among these were his very valuable summa- 
ries of the Psalms, which he wrote with in- 
credible rapidity, the whole having been com- 
pleted in 16 hours. What a brave soldier of 
Christ he was is shown in his sermon on Eph. 
vi, concerning ''The Armor and Weapons of 
Christians ;" and with what eloquence he eu- 
logized the excellence of charity is evinced in 
his tract on 1. John iv. 

As Luther had heard that the preachers at 
Frankfort on the Maine taught Zwinglian 
doctrine respecting the sacrament, pretending 
that there is no difference between this and 
Luther's doctrine, and that they also rejected 
confession, he wrote, in 1533, the powerful 
and conclusive "Warning to the Frankfurt- 
ers to beware of Zwingli and Zwinglian doc- 
trine, " at the close of which, giving instruc- 
tion concerning confession, he says : "If thou- 
sands of worlds were mine, I would rather 
lose all than permit one jot of this confession 
to be banished from the Church/' 



— 151 — 

To the Lutherans who, at this period, werd 
fiercely persecuted and banished by duke 
George, Luther addressed several letters of 
consolation ; and as this prince charged him 
with perjury and rebellion, he defended him- 
self with vehemence and with a just zeal like 
Elijah's. i 

In the year 1534 Luther, by the special as- 
sistance of God, completed the great work of 
translating the whole Bible into the German 
language. This work he had commenced in 
1517, when he translated the seven penitential 
Psalms, and upon it he was diligently en- 
gaged 17 years, devoting to it a large portion 
of his time. The difficulties which he had to 
encounter in this work transcended all concep- 
tion. In the Old Testament, especially, these 
were so great that he often sepnt four weeks 
in reflection and inquiry upon a single word, 
before he was satisfied how it should be trans- 
lated into the German. It is therefore with 
justice that Matthesius calls this translation of 
the Bible one of the greatest wonders which 
God accomplished through Dr. Luther, so 
that it seems to an attentive reader as if the 
Holy Spirit, by the mouths of the prophets 
and apostles, had spoken in our German lan- 
guage. This translation surpasses not only 
all that had been made previously, which had, 
moreover,, become very scarce, and which were 
unintelligible, but also all that were made 
subsequently, even down to the present day. 

In this respect, also, Luther must ever re- 



— 152 — 

main the master, and to his work must be al- 
lotted the prize. God richly blessed this 
work ; for by the millions of copies of this 
translation the word of God was scattered not 
only over all Germany, but by translations 
made from it into other languages it was also 
spread over other lands. By this transla- 
tion, moreover, a rich treasury of language 
was supplied, from which the peculiar and en- 
ergetic language of the Church was derived, 
as this is found chiefly in Luther's works, by 
which, again, a good foundation was laid for 
the development of the German language in 
general. 

In 1535 the Anabaptists created new trou- 
bles and deceived many persons. They re- 
jected the written word of God and the min- 
isterial office ; they maintained, in a blasphem- 
ous manner, that nothing but bread and wine 
is distributed in the Holy Supper ; they re- 
viled the government and led a rude, scan- 
dalous life. They carried on their abomina- 
tions especially in the city of Muenster, un- 
til their heretical proceedings were checked 
by force of arms. Against these enemies of 
the Christian Church, also, Luther, in a num- 
ber of treatises, vigorously wielded the sword 
of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and 
faithfully warned against their errors, as he 
did also against the sneaks and hedge-priests, 
who presume to teach without a regular call. 

At the close of this year a papal legate, 
whose name was Paul Vergerius, appeared in 



— 153 — 

Germany for the purpose of announcing the 
ecclesiastical council which had long been 
promised. He came also, with a large reti- 
nue, to Wittenberg and invited Luther to vis- 
it him. When they came to speak of the 
Council, Luther declared that the opposite 
party were not in earnest, and that, even if 
such a convention were brought about, the 
time would be spent, as was customary, in 
treating of unnecessary matters, not of faith, 
justification, and true unity in the Spirit and 
in faith. Upon this Vergerius turned to his 
attendants and said : "This man certainly 
sees the chief point in the whole transaction.' ' 
Luther added : "We are fully certain — 
through the Holy Ghost — on all points, and 
have no need of any Council for ourselves, but 
desire it for the sake of those wretched peo- 
ple who are oppressed by your tyranny ; for 
you do not know what you believe. But, if 
you desire it, institute one and, by the help of 
God, I shall come, even though I knew that 
you would burn me." This Vergerius, ten 
years afterwards, became a zealous Lutheran ; 
for when, in the hope of becoming a cardinal, 
he diligently studied the works of Luther for 
the purpose of refuting them, he became so 
fully convinced of the truth that he wrote 
not against Lutheranism, but against the pa- 
pacy. 

Among the many treatises which Luther 
prepared in this year the Simple Method of 
Prayer, addressed to a good friend, is especial- 



— 154 — 

ly worthy of note. It contains brief but ex- 
cellent directions how to use the first three 
chief parts of the Catechism in prayer. 

How ready Luther was to unite with the 
Reformed, if this could be done without en- 
dangering the sound doctrine, is again appar- 
ent from the so-called Wittenberg Concord. — 
In 1536, a short time before Whitsuntide, seve- 
ral Reformed theologians, among whom was 
Bucer, were sent to Wittenberg for the purpose 
of conferring once more with Luther and the 
other theologians upon the doctrine of the 
Lord's Supper. In the introductory remarks 
Luther gave his reasons for hitherto doubting 
the honest intentions of his opponents, and 
stated especially to Bucer that if he were not 
honest in his purpose it would be better to lay 
aside all thoughts of an agreement, in order 
that the evil might not become worse, and 
that posterity might not be doomed to sigh on 
account of such shams. When Bucer, some- 
what disconcerted, gave the assurance that he 
was upright in his intentions, and sought to 
excuse past proceedings, Luther insisted that 
they must publicly recant as unchristian the 
doctrine of the Lord's Supper which they had 
hitherto taught, and promise to accept and 
teach the true doctrine with the Lutheran 
Church ; that they must, without reserve, de- 
clare that in the sacrament Christ's body and 
blood are substantially present in the bread 
and wine, even though he who administers 
and he who receives it be unworthy. These 



— 155 — 

points were, with others, drawn up by Mel- 
anchthon, and were all signed by the Eeformed 
and Lutheran theologians and publicly read 
from the pulpit. 

A portion of the Eeformed party expressed 
their joy at this agreement ; the Swiss, how- 
ever would not receive it, but published a 
tract against it. Bucer also soon became va- 
cillating again, and even Melanchthon, and 
others who agreed with him, secretly gave en- 
couragement to the departure from the sound 
doctrine, and thus did much injury and caused 
Luther much sorrow in the last years of his 
life. 

In 1537 the Lutheran princes held a con- 
vention in Smalcald, where the articles which 
Luther had been requested to prepare, were 
signed and ordered to be presented to the coun- 
cil which had been called. These Smalculd 
Articles were also adopted by the Lutheran 
Church as part of her public confessions. — 
Luther accompanied the princes to Smalcald, 
and there delivered several very important 
sermons on the three articles of the Christian 
faith and on Matt, iv, in which he presented 
a brief view of the whole history of the 
Church, showing what the Church of Christ, 
like Christ himself and every individual Chris- 
tian, must suffer at the hands of Satan, es- 
pecially how he, as a black devil, in the first 
three centuries tempted Christians, by exter- 
nal tyranny, to fall away from Christ, and 
when this failed how he, as a white devil, 



— 156 — 

falsely appealing to the Holy Scriptures, 
troubled them with various heresies, especially 
the Arian, and, finally, how he, as a divine 
devil, induced them under the papacy, to wor- 
ship him by self-imposed works and services, 
but how, in the Reformation, the divine mask 
was torn from Him by the word of God, and 
he was deprived of all power over those who 
believe this word. 

Whilst he was sojourning at Smalcald Luth- 
er suffered intense pain from an attack of the 
gravel, so that he and others saw death star- 
ing him in the face. All the princes and 
lords who were there, visited him ; and when 
the pious elector approached his bed of suffer- 
ing, Luther prophetically told him that after 
his death there would be a division in the uni- 
versity at Wittenberg and that his doctrine 
would be altered ; for even then Melanchthon 
was suspected of being easily drawn from the 
rigid truth through a false love of peace. — 
The elector, who was much concerned on ac- 
count of Luther's words, declared with firm- 
ness that although the prosperity of the uni- 
versity was attributed to Melanchthon 7 s learn- 
ing and fame, he would rather be deprived of 
his services than have the truth suffer, even if 
the university should thus be destroyed. He 
then comforted Luther with the words : "Our 
dear Lord God will have mercy upon us for 
the sake of His word and His name, and spare 
your life." When he had said this he turned 
away, for the tears started in his eyes. 



— 157 — 

But as his pain became more severe Luther 
desired to betaken to Wittenberg. According 
to the wish of the elector he was conveyed 
thither in his own carriage, which was accom- 
panied by another conveyance bearing such ar- 
ticles as Luther might need on the way. Two 
court physicians were also ordered to exert all 
their skill toward his recovery. When he 
left Smalcald he commended himself to the 
prayers of the Church and made a brief con- 
fession of his Christian faith : M I cling to the 
Lord Jesus and His word, and in my heart 
know of no other righteousness than the 
precious blood of Christ, which graciously 
cleanses me, and all who believe, from every 
sin, as this is freely confessed in my books and 
in the Augsburg Confession.' ' At his depart- 
ure he called to his friends : "May God fill 
you with hatred toward the pope V 3 that is, 
they should remain unaffected by the papal 
doctrines, and remain open enemies of the 
pope's idolatry unto their end. While in the 
carriage he made his will and prepared him- 
self joyfully to receive the Lord Christ, when 
He should come to take him to Himself. But 
the Lord again delivered him, after eleven 
days of suffering, from all his sickness. This 
occurred at Tambach, a small village near the 
Thuringian forest. Therefore, filled with 
gratitude and praise, he there wrote the 
words : "This is my Peniel, for here hath the 
Lord appeared unto me as he blessed and de- 
livered the patriarch when he wrestled with 



— 158 — 

the Lord/' When he was asked what remedy- 
had cured him of the gravel, he answered : 
"Prayer ; for/' he said, "in all Christian con- 
gregations fervent prayers were offered in my 
behalf, according to the command of St. James 
v, 14—15." 

In Gotha he was met by the delegates of 
the Reformed Church, Bucer and Lycosthenes, 
who were commissioned to proceed to Smalcald 
to promote the cause of the agreement adopted 
in the previous year. Although Luther was 
still weak he invited them to visit him and 
conversed kindly with them. He told them, 
among other things, that the best thing for 
them would be to keep quiet in future, to 
teach sound doctrine, and to confess frankly : 
Dear friends, God has permitted us to fall ; 
we have erred ; let us be cautious now, and in 
future teach aright. Nothing is gained by 
dissembling, and the consciences of the people 
cannot be quieted by prevarication. God will 
call us to a strict account also in regard to 
our doctrine, and therefore we must yield 
nothing that is God's. From this whole con- 
versation, as well as from a number of Letters 
of Luther, it is evident that the Reformed 
pretence as though Luther had partially ac- 
cepted their doctrine is unfounded ; for whilst 
he charitably manifested all possible lenity 
and hoped for the best, he did not, in doctrine, 
depart one hair's breadth from his former con- 
fession. 



— 159 - 

Upon Luther's return to Wittenberg in re- 
stored health, he again continued zealously to 
pray, study, lecture and preach. He ex- 
plained, especially, the farewell addresses of 
Christ, according to John xiv, 16, which Dr. 
Creuziger took down and subsequently pub- 
lished. This work Luther himself pronounced 
his best book, but in profound humility adds : 
"although I did not make it, but Dr. Creuzi- 
ger manifested in it his great understanding 
and industry/' Whilst Luther now enjoyed 
comparative peace from his enemies, and had 
the gratification to see that they, with all their 
rage and defiance, accomplished but little, 
yea, that the number of cities and countries 
which received the Gospel was constantly in- 
creasing, a secret division occurred in 1538 
among his own followers, which caused him 
much anxiety. False teachers arose, who 
strove to banish the law and the doctrine of 
good works from the Church entirely, and who 
desired to lead the people to repentance solely 
by preaching Christ and Him crucified, on 
which account they were called Antinomians. 
But as their originator, John Agricola, re- 
fused, when challenged by Luther, to defend 
his works, which he had published anony- 
mously, Luther was compelled to confute this 
dangerous error in writings and disputations. 
To his faithful pupil Matthesius he said at ta- 
ble : "You shall see, if our people retain the 
sound doctrine, how men will be instigated 
against this school and Church (of Wittenberg) 



— 160 — 

and will write against them, becoming great 
heretics and dangerous fanatics/' 

About this time Luther published a German 
translation of the three chief symbols, (the 
Apostolic, Nicene and Athanasian, which form 
the basis of the Book of Concord,) with a 
beautiful exposition, in which he treated the 
doctrine of the Trinity and especially that of 
the Divinity of Christ, briefly and succinctly. 
He also wrote an extended commentary on the 
51. Psalm, in which he set forth the doctrine 
of repentance in all its compass so convincing- 
ly and so consolingly that this work occupies 
the first place among the many similar master- 
pieces of Luther. 

In the year 1539 Luther was again com- 
pelled to witness how the people, when they 
were delivered from the bondage of the pope, 
abused their Christian liberty, and how they 
became constantly more rude and self-secure, 
despising the ministers and refusing to heed 
their rebukes. Luther testified loudly and 
openly that God would avenge such base in- 
gratitude towards His Holy Word by sending 
them bodily plagues and strong delusions al- 
ter his death, which also actually came to pass. 
He also had the mortification to hear similar 
complaints of the scandalous lives of minis- 
ters, who had left the cloisters indeed, but 
not the sins which are practiced there. 

In April, 1539, a violent enemy of Luther, 
George, duke of Saxony, departed this life, 
whose death was hastened by the sudden de- 



— 161 — 

cease of both the heirs to his throne. This 
portion of Saxony thus came into the posses- 
ion of his "brother, duke Henry, who had al- 
ready introduced the reformation in his dom- 
inions, and who now, without delay, had the 
Gospel preached to his new subjects, the most 
of whom had ardently desired it without hav- 
ing had the opportunity to hear it. This was 
done first at Leipzig on Whitsunday, when 
Luther in particular preached in the presence 
of the duke. Thus was fulfilled what he had 
foretold : "I see that duke George does not 
cease to persecute the word of God, the preach- 
ing of that word, and the poor Lutherans ; 
yea, that he becomes worse and worse ; but 
I shall live to see the day when God shall ex- 
terminate his whole race, and I shall preach 
he word of God at Leipzig." 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

The last Years of Luther's Life. 

Although Luther felt the burdens of age 
increasing, he still continued teaching the 
word of God without growing weary. He 
gave an extended exposition of the 110. Psalm, 
setting forth the nature of Christ's kingdom, 
and especially showing that Christ is our 
King and High Priest, and that all Christians 
are by faith lords over their enemies, and spir- 
itual priests. He did this with great power of 
the Spirit. In the same year appeared the 
' 11* 



— 162 — . 

instructive work on the "Church, and Coun- 
cils/ ' in which Luther with great erudition 
proves from the history of the Church that the 
general Christian Councils never introduced 
new articles of faith, hut only defended the 
ancient faith against new errors. 

In the year 1540 God again heard the pray- 
er of Luther in a wonderful manner. Mel- 
anchthon, in consequence of great depression 
of mind, had hecome dangerously ill in Wei- 
mar. The elector sent his own carraige to 
"bring Luther in great haste. When he ar- 
rived, Melanchthon was lying at the point of 
death. Luther was greatly alarmed, hut im- 
mediately turned to his dear Lord in earnest 
prayer, and appealed to all His promises in 
Holy Scripture concerning the hearing of 
prayer. He then took Melanchthon hy the 
hand and said: "Be of good cheer, Philip, 
you shall not die;" and as he knew the cause 
of his illness he added : "Although God has 
reason to destroy, yet he has no pleasure in 
the death of a sinner, but that he turn from 
his way and live; He desires life and not 
death ; and since He graciously accepted the 
greatest sinners that ever lived on earth, Adam 
and Eve, He will not reject you, Philip, or 
permit you to perish in your sin and depression. 
Therefore do not give way to the spirit of mel- 
ancholy and become your own murderer, hut 
trust in the Lord who can kill and make 
alive/ ' When Luther thus spoke, Melanch- 
thon revived and rapidly regained his strength. 



— 163 — 

He himself confessed : "I would have died if I 
had not been snatched from death by the arri- 
val of Luther." A similar hearing of his 
prayers Luther experienced on two other occa- 
sions, so that he could say : U I have secured 
the deliverance of our Philip, my Kate, and 
Myconius from death by prayer/' 

In the autumn of 1540 Melanchthon went 
with several theologians to attend at Worms 
a Conference with the Papists. Luther did 
not accompany them, but said : "God has giv- 
en us many good learned men who under- 
stand His word and can defend it against the 
opponents/' When he took leave of them he 
blessed them and addressed to them many 
words of power, among which were these : 
"Go in the name of the Lord, as ambassadors 
of Jesus Christ ; cling firmly to the simple 
word of God, and yield nothing that is 
Christ's, as ye have no authority to yield/' 
As the opponents at the Conference could ad- 
vance nothing against the arguments of Mel- 
anchthon, they postponed the further discus- 
sion until the approaching Diet at Regensburg 
in the year 1541. There the Papists present- 
ed a document, generally called the Regens- 
burg Interim, which was intended to serve as 
a basis for consultation and also, if possible, 
for union. But Luther clearly proved, his ad- 
vice having been asked upon the matter, that 
the purpose of the opponents, especially in re- 
gard to the article of Justification, was noth- 
ing else than to put a new piece of cloth upon 



— 164 — 

an old garment, whereby the rent would mere- 
ly be made worse. Matt, ix, 16. A number 
of foreign princes however, resolved, with the 
knowledge of the emperor, to send a respect- 
able embassy to Luther, in the hope that he 
might still be prevailed upon to form an agree- 
ment. This resolution was carried into effect, 
and to the oral address of the ambassadors Lu- 
ther immediately gave an oral answer, which 
he subsequently reduced to writing and the im- 
port of which was that if the first four articles, 
especially that concerning Justification, should 
in all respects be preached purely and be re- 
ceived as Christian, the poison of the other 
ten would be neutralized, and the clear teach- 
ings of these articles and their application by 
means of correct preaching would soon lead to 
an agreement in regard to the last ten. Seck- 
endorf, in his excellent History of Lutheran- 
ism, praises the answer of Luther in this trans- 
action, which is one of the most important in 
the Keformation, both for the modesty of its 
style and and the firmness which it evinced. 
For as Luther before could not be intimidated 
by the menaces of Cajetan at Augsburg and of 
the emperor at Worms, neither could he now 
be lured to a sinful compliance by the flatter- 
ies of such an imposing embassy. But the 
opponents took no notice of this answer, and 
again referred the whole matter to a general 
Council. If the princes and theologians had 
taken this answer of Luther as their model in 
the negotiations respecting the Interim, which 



— 165 — 

was, shortly after Luther's death, fabricated 
from that of Regensburg, the Lutheran Church 
would not have been so sorely troubled. 

At this period Luther suffered manifold bod- 
ily pains and infirmities, on which account 
he was much occupied with thoughts of 
death and prayed without ceasing for a happy 
end. He was thus much impeded in his la- 
bors, and several times he was compelled to 
leave the pulpit without finishing his sermon. 
Frequently he could not read a letter, some- 
times not even two or three lines, without rest- 
ing. Still he wrote a number of excellent 
works. Besides the beautiful exposition of 
the Songs of Degrees (Ps. cxx — cxxxv,) he 
published the two sermons on Matt, iii, con- 
cerning the Baptism of Christ and Christians, 
which he had delivered at the court of Dessau 
upon the occasion of a prince's baptism. To 
the ministers he issued an earnest admonition 
to preach against usury, which, he says, pre- 
vailed to such an extent that he scarcely hoped 
for any amendment. At this period also he 
published the admirable exposition of the xc. 
Psalm. 

In 1542 Luther consecrated Nicholas von 
Amsdorf, whom the elector had chosen as 
Lutheran bishop of Naumburg and Zeitz, and 
solemnly installed him, on which occasion he 
preached on an Example of the Consecration 
of a true Christian Bishop. This sermon he 
expanded in a work with the same title which 
was published soon afterwards. 



— 166 — 

In this year the Bohemian brethren, as their 
bishop Comenius relates, sent to Luther two 
delegates, for the fourth and last time, for the 
purpose of ascertaining what might be expect- 
ed of the Lutherans in regard to Church dis- 
cipline. After they had held a friendly con- 
ference with him and the other theologians, 
he invited them to a parting meal, extended 
his hand to them in the presence of the pro- 
fessors assembled, and said : "Be ye apostles 
of the Bohemians, and I and my friends will 
be apostles of the Germans. Perform the work 
of Christ among your people, as you shall have 
opportunity, and we will do it among oars 
according to the ability given us." Luther's 
manner of conducting the work of the Lord 
was to provide the Church first of all with the 
pure doctrine, that the true faith might be 
planted and nurtured as a good tree, showing 
constantly how such a tree must of itself bear 
the fruits of a holy life, at the same time using 
all his endeavors, in his works and by his 
counsels, as circumstances required, to intro- 
duce good external discipline, of which all 
the Lutheran Church constitutions of the pe- 
riod of the Beformation bear ample testimony. 

Towards the close of the year 1543, Luther 
had the pleasure of receiving a lengthy com- 
munication from several brethren in Italy, 
who had been led to a knowledge of the truth 
by his writings. This Indicated an unutter- 
able joy in the treasure of sound doctrine, a 
fervent zeal for its preservation, a resolute re- 



— 167 - 

jection of all error, particularly in regard to 
the sacramental controversy, a firm steadfast- 
ness amid all persecutions, a profound rever- 
ence for the chosen instrument Luther, and a 
high appreciation of his works, which was 
based upon their own experience. As a spec- 
imen of this laudable epistle, the whole of 
which would occupy too much space, we tran- 
scribe the first sentence, which reads thus : 
"The rivers of living water which flow from 
thee, reverend Sir, must be swollen more and 
more by the heavenly rains with which it shall 
be your task to water the thirsty pastures of 
the Lord, as well there by daily sermons as 
here by your writings/ ' The joy of these 
honest people must have been great when they 
received the excellent answer of Luther, in 
which he paternally warns them particularly 
against the sacramentarians. 

In 1543 the Lutheran Church was again be- 
set by various dangers, including some from 
without. But Luther in these also manifested 
a strong confidence in his G-od, and foretold 
with full assurance that there would be no 
war during his life. 

When Caspar Schwenkfeld, who endeavored 
to put a new dress upon the old errors of the 
sacramentarians, and thus deceived many per- 
sons in Silesia, sent several of his tracts to Lu- 
ther, the latter replied to him in the severe 
words which he merited, telling him plainly : 
"Leave me unmolested with the books which 
the devil spues from you." The same zeal 



— 168 — 

against false doctrine Luther manifested at 
that period in another similar case. When a 
puhlisher sent him a Swiss translation of the 
Bible, he wrote to him that he should keep 
his present, because it was a work of his 
preachers, with whom, inasmuch as they re- 
fused to renounce their error, he could have no 
fellowship. 

Luther also, in a number of publications, re- 
futed the enemies of Christianity who were 
outside of the Church. He republished in 
the German language a refutation of the Ko- 
ran, the religious book of the Turks, and in 
the preface earnestly warned against such Sa- 
tanic doctrine. In the year 1543 he wrote a 
number of books against the Jews, in which 
he cleared many beautiful texts of the lies 
with which they had perverted them, and ex- 
posed their blasphemous and diabolical malice 
against Christ and his disciples. Nor did he 
now, as he had done formerly, believe in a fu- 
ture general conversion of the Jews. Finally, 
in this year also appeared the important work 
on the Last Words of David (2 Sam. xxiii, 1 — 
7,) in which he earnestly and forcibly treats 
of the Three Persons in the Holy Trinity and 
the two Natures in the one undivided Person 
of the Lord Christ, so that by this powerful 
treatise every Christian may be established 
in his faith and guarded against all kinds of 
error. 

Notwithstanding that Luther with advanc- 
ing age experienced increasing ailments in 



— 169 — 

his mortal frame, he still unweariedly partici- 
pated in the whole work of the Keformation ; 
and whilst he, as a true watchman upon the 
walls of Zion, was always on the alert, his ar- 
dent zeal for the preservation of sound doctrine 
induced him to write a number of works, espec- 
ially against the sacramentarians. Schwenk- 
feld, notwithstanding the severe rebuke which 
he had received, with incredible hardihood still 
pretended that Luther harmonized with him. 
This induced the latter in 1544 to publish the 
book entitled, "Brief Confession on the Lord's 
Supper against the Fanatics/' of which he 
himself says : "I, who stand on the verge of 
the grave, shall take this testimony and glory 
with me to the judgment seat of my dear 
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that I have with 
all earnestness condemned and avoided the fa- 
natics and foes of the sacrament, Carlstadt, 
Zwingli, OEcolampadius, Stenkfeld, and their 
disciples at Zurich, or wherever they may be, 
and our preaching, as they well know, is daily 
directed against their blasphemous and slan- 
derous heresy/' 

In the year 1545 Melanchthon, with a view 
of laying it before the Diet of Worms, drew 
up the so-called Wittenberg Opinion concern- 
ing the Reformation , which Luther also signed, 
upon which occasion he testified that it is im- 
possible to remain faithful to the Word of God 
and preserve a conscience void of offence, and 
at the same time retain the favor of the world 
and receive credit for gentleness. 



— 170 — 

It was Luther's lot to experience yet, a 
short time before his death, the bitterest sor- 
rows, inasmuch as, especially in Wittenberg, 
ungodliness of life caused one scandal after an- 
other, which tortured his soul and finally in- 
duced him, in 1545, to depart from the city 
and visit his friends at Merseburg and Zeitz. 
But the elector, to whom the university had 
earnestly represented the matter, addressed to 
him a very gracious letter, in which he prom- 
ised to do all in his power to remove the evils, 
thus inducing him to return to Wittenberg. — 
There he completed the sixth and last edition of 
his German Bible, at the improvement of which 
he and his learned friends had been constant- 
ly laboring, inserting many beautiful observa- 
tions which are known by the name "of mar- 
ginal notes." He also finished one of his 
greatest masterpieces, the large Commentary 
on Genesis, upon which he had lectured, al- 
though with frequent interruptions, for the 
previous ten years. Finally he published also 
the earnest and energetic work : "The Papacy 
instituted by theDevil, ' ' which was his last book. 

According to the command of the emperor 
another religious conference between the con- 
tending parties was to be held in the early 
part of the year 1546, to which Dr. Major was 
sent from Wittenberg. When he went to Lu- 
ther to take leave of him, he found at the en- 
trance of his study the words written in Lu- 
ther's hand : "Our professors are to be exam- 
ined on the Lord's Supper.' ' 



— 171 — 

CHAPTER XXX. 
Luther's Last Days, Death and Burial. 

In one of his last sermons Luther exhorted 
his hearers to pray diligently and to prove the 
spirits, and, when they should hear of his be- 
ing sick, not to pray that his life might be 
prolonged, but that a happy end might be 
granted him. "I am weary of the world," he 
said, "and the world of me ; it is therefore 
easy to part, as when a guest quits his lodg- 
ings." 

Luther's last sermon delivered in Witten- 
berg, Jan. 17., on Horn. xii. 3, is also remark- 
able, in which he treats of the fruits of faith 
in Christ and of reason and its conceit, and in 
which he says : "We can notice usury, drunk- 
enness, adultery, murder, &c, and the world 
also knows them to be sin ; but Satan's bride, 
reason, the pretty strumpet, walks abroad in 
boasted wisdom and what she says she thinks 
is of the Holy Spirit : who is to help us here ? 
No jurist, physician or king can render us as- 
sistance. For she is the greatest harlot that 
Satan has. Other gross sins can be seen ; but 
reason can be judged by no man ; she intro- 
duces fanaticism respecting Baptism and the 
Lord's Supper, and thinks that whatever Sa- 
tan suggests to her must be the Holy Spirit. 
Therefore St. Paul says : 'As I am an apostle 
and have received the Spirit, I exhort you.' " 

In this sermon Luther also foretold the 
troubles which came upon the Lutheran Church 



— 172 — 

shortly after his death. He says : "I plainly 
see that, unless God gives us faithful ministers 
of'the Church, Satan will rend our churches 
by means of the sectarian fanatics and will not 
cease until he has accomplished his end. 
This is his purpose, and if he cannot effect it 
through the pope and the emperor, he will do 
it through those who are not yet agreed with 
us in doctrine. Therefore it is necessary for 
us to pray that God would give us pure teach- 
ers. At present we feel secure and see not 
how terribly the prince of this world seeks to 
ensnare us by means of the pope, the emperor, 
and our learned men of this place, whilst we 
say : What harm can it do if we yield this ? 
No, not a hair's breadth dare we yield. If 
they agree with us, well ; if they will not, 
they must let it alone. I have not received 
the doctrine from them, but by divine grace 
from God. I am well advised. Therefore 
earnestly pray God that ye may retain His 
word, for perilous times are approaching/ ' 
The publisher of this sermon observes at the 
close with regard to the Wittenberg Univer- 
sity : "Dr. Martin Luther, of blessed memory, 
often remarked in the hearing of Dr. Augus- 
tine Schurf and other credible persons : c After 
my death none of these theologians will re- 
main steadfast.' And this, alas ! has proved 
true." 

In the autumn of the previous year Luther 
had, at the request of the count of Mansfeld, 
journeyed to Eisleben for the purpose of effect- 



— 173 — 

ing an agreement "between the counts and their 
subjects, whom they sought to deprive of their 
mines. Having then failed to accomplish his 
end, he set out again for the same purpose in 
the beginning of the year 1546. He himself 
said that he had, upon the invitation of the 
counts of Mansfeld, left Wittenberg in order 
to be free from his daily toil and trouble, and 
to devote himself to prayer, preaching and the 
restoration of harmony and peace among his 
rulers. He accordingly set out on the Satur- 
day after his last sermon, Jan. 23., with his 
three sons, and arrived at Halle on the follow- 
ing Sunday, where he visited his faithful friend 
Dr. Jonas ; and on the following day, being 
the festival of St. Paul's Conversion, he preach- 
ed on Acts 9, 1 — 19 concerning St. Paul's Call 
to the Apostleship. He especially commended 
St. Paul's writings as the true relic, in com- 
parison with which all the feigned relics of the 
pope, particularly the pretended head of St. 
Paul which was exhibited at St. Peter's in 
Kome, are to be regarded as nothing. 

After he had, with great peril, crossed the 
Saale near Halle in a boat, and had, on the 
borders of the Mansfeld territory, been recei/ed 
by the counts and upwards of a hundred 
horsemen, he was escorted to Eisleben. A 
short distance from the city he became so un- 
well that his life was considered in danger. 
But he became better and tarried three weeks 
in Eisleben, taking part in the negotiations 
until the day before his death. His efforts to 



— 174 — 

restore harmony were again baffled by the 
jurists, so that Luther determined, if his life 
were spared, to write a book against them. 
During his stay at Eisleben he ordained two 
ministers and twice received absolution and 
the Holy Supper. He also preached four ser- 
mons, as he was always very diligent in preach- 
ing, making the statement himself that he of- 
ten delivered four sermons in one day and did 
this for twenty-five years. In these four ser- 
mons Luther, notwithstanding his bodily weak- 
ness, bore the most powerful testimony to all 
the chief articles of the Christian faith and a- 
gainst all the errors of the Papists, Sacramen- 
tarians and other fanatics. 

At the close of his last sermon, three days 
before his death, he took formal leave of his 
dear friends at Eisleben and said : "As I have 
now been here some time and preached to you, 
and must now return home and perhaps shall 
preach no more, I would now bless you and 
entreat you to adhere steadfastly to the Word 
which your ministers by the grace of God 
faithfully teach you, and to cultivate the habit 
of praying that God would protect'you against 
all the wise and prudent who despise the doc- 
trine of the Gospel, since they have done much 
injury and might do more." He then con- 
cluded his last sermon with the words : "May 
God grant us His grace that we may with 
gratitude receive His word, increase in the 
knowledge and faith of His Son, our Lord 



— 175 — 

Jesns Christ, and firmly abide in the confes- 
sion of His blessed word to the end. Amen." 
As he was accustomed to do always, he 
prayed with great fervor every evening in his 
room at the open window, after which he re- 
turned joyfully to his friends, like one who 
had been relieved of a heavy burden, and con- 
versed with them for half an hour before re- 
tiring to rest. In these last days of his life 
many important remarks and words of comfort 
fell from his lips at table. On February 17. 
his weakness increased visibly, so that he was 
advised to take rest, which he also did. On 
the last evening, among other things, he an- 
swered the question whether believers would 
know each other in the future world, by ad- 
ducing the case of Adam, who immediately 
knew his wife to be bone of his bone and flesh 
of his flesh, because he was full of the Holy 
Ghost and of the knowledge of God. He then 
went to his room and prayed, as was his cus- 
tom, especially for the Church of his native 
land, but soon afterwaTds complained of an 
oppressive sensation in the breast. He took 
the medicine which was given him and, at 
about 8 o'clock, laid himself upon his couch, 
saying: "If I could slumber a half hour it 
would, I hope, become better." He then 
slept quietly until 10 o'clock, when he awoke 
and arose, saying as he entered his bed-room: 
"In the name of God I retire to rest ; into 
Thy hands I commit my spirit ; Thou hast re- 
deemed me, Lord God of truth." When he 



— 176 — 

had retired to bed he extended his hand to all, 
bade them good night, and said : "Dr. Jonas 
and M. Coelius and the rest of you, pray for 
our Lord God and His Gospel, that it may 
prosper ; for the Council of Trent and the odi- 
ous pope are greatly enraged against it." 

As the clock struck one he awoke and said : 
"0 Lord God, how ill I feel ! Ah, dear Dr. 
Jonas, I believe I shall remain here at Eisle- 
ben, where I was born and baptized." He 
then went from his chamber to the room and 
repeated: "Into Thy hands I commend my 
spirit ; Thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of 
truth." When perspiration had been pro- 
duced by rubbing him with warm cloths, and 
his friends, especially the counts who had 
come in haste to visit him, expressed the hope 
that his condition would now improve, he 
said : "Yes, it is the cold sweat of death ; I 
shall yield up my spirit, for the sickness 
grows worse." He then prayed in these 
words : "0 my heavenly Father, the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Thou God of 
all consolation, I thank Thee that Thou hast 
revealed to me Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, in 
whom I believe, whom I have preached and 
confessed, whom I have loved and extolled, 
whom the pernicious pope and all the ungodly 
dishonor, persecute and blaspheme. I pray 
Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, receive my soul into 
Thy care. heavenly Father, although I 
must leave this body and be torn away from 
this life, I nevertheless know assuredly that I 



— 177 - 

shall be with Thee forever and that no one 
can pluck me out of Thy hands/ ' 

He also said further in Latin: "God so 
loved the world that He gave His only begot- 
ten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life/' 
John 3, 16 ; and the words of the 68. Psalm : 
u He that is our God is the God of salvation, 
and unto God the Lord belong the issues from 
death." A physician having offered him a 
tonic, he took it and again said: "I pass 
away, I shall yield up my spirit/' after which 
he rapidly thrice repeated the words in Latin: 
"Father, into Thy hands I commend my spir- 
it ; Thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of 
truth/' He then lay quietly with folded 
hands and closed eyes. His friends spoke to 
him, but he returned no answer. Upon this 
Jonas and Coelius addressed to him in loud 
tones the question : "Keverend father, are you 
willing to die in firm adherence to Christ and 
the doctrine which you have preached?" to 
which he answered so distinctly that all could 
hear it: "Yes." This was his last word. 
Having uttered this he turned upon his right 
side and slept about a quarter of an hour. 
Some of those present again began to entertain 
hopes of his recovery, when his face became 
deathly pale ; his hands and feet became cold ; 
he drew one more deep, gentle breath, and 
yielded up his spirit into the hands of his 
faithful God in quiet resignation. He thus 
fell asleep, in the Lord, gently and peacefully, 
12* 



— 178 — 

after a last illness of only about seven hours, 
without disquietude, without pains of body or 
pangs of death, on the 18th of February, 
1546, between two and three o'clock in the 
morning, in the 63rd year of his pilgrimage 
on earth. 

The sad tidings of Luther's death rapidly 
spread through town and country. A large 
multitude of persons of all classes came to 
view the corpse while burning tears ran down 
their cheeks. Early on the 19th of February 
the letters announcing Luther's death reached 
Wittenberg and caused general consternation 
and profound sorrow. Melanchthon was 
charged by the professors with communicating 
the painful intelligence to the students. He 
did this in a brief Latin address, citing the 
words of Elisha (2 K. 2, 12), which he had 
also previously applied to him: "Alas ! he 
has been taken from us, the chariot of Israel 
and the horsemen thereof, by whom the Church 
was led in this last age of the world." The 
funeral of Luther was truly princely. On 
February 19. the corpse was laid in a metallic 
coffin and borne amidst the singing of hymns 
to the principal Church of Eisleben, where it 
was placed before the altar, while Dr. Jonas 
preached a funeral sermon on 1 Thess. 4, 13- 
18, treating of the person and gifts of Dr. Lu- 
ther, of the resurrection and eternal life, and 
of the power against the kingdom of Satan 
which his death leaves to us. In the evening 
the elector's answer to the reports which had 



— 179 — 

been sent to him was received, according to 
which the corpse was to he brought to Witten- 
berg for burial. On the following day, Feb- 
ruary 20., the minister at Eisleben, M. Coelius, 
delivered an excellent funeral sermon on Is. 
57, 1-2, after which the corpse was with great 
solemnity removed from Eisleben. An innu- 
merable multitude surrounded the hearse with 
weeping and mourning, and in nearly all the 
villages the bells were tolled. 

When the corpse, late in the evening, ar- 
rived at the gates of Halle, it was received 
with great honors and brought to the church 
while Luther's hymn: "From deep distress 
to Thee I cry," was sobbed rather than sung. 
On the next day the corpse was conveyed 
further on its way, was everywhere received 
with solemnity and escorted, and finally reached 
Wittenberg on the 22. of February. Here 
the funeral procession moved, amid singing 
and the tolling of all the bells, to the castle 
church in the following order. First came 
the school choirs and the ministers, followed 
by the commissaries of the elector and the 
counts of Mansfeld with a train of 60 horse- 
men. Next came the hearse, drawn by four 
horses, covered with a large costly pall of 
black velvet, the gift of the elector. Then 
followed Luther's widow and his three child- 
ren and other relatives ; next the Eector of 
the University in his official robe, accompan- 
ied by princes and nobles who were studying 



— 180 — 

there. These were followed by the professors, 
the city council, the students and the citizens. 
When the corpse had been brought into the 
Church Dr. Bugenhagen preached a consola- 
tory sermon on 1 Thess. 4, 13-14, in the de- 
livery of which he was frequently interrupted 
by his own tears and those of his hearers. In 
conclusion Melanchthon delivered a Latin ad- 
dress, after which the corpse was lowered into 
the grave near the pulpit, upon which Luther 
had preached so many powerful sermons, and 
was thus, as St. Paul says, sown in weakness, 
that it might arise on that day to eternal 
glory. 

May our heavenly Father, who called Lu- 
ther to this great work, our Lord Jesus Christ, 
whom he faithfully preached and confessed, 
and the Holy Spirit, who by His Divine power 
gave him such cheerfulness and confidence 
against the gates of hell in so many mighty 
conflicts, help us all, that we may attain the 
same peaceful departure from this life to the 
same eternal blessedness. 

In conclusion, my dear readers, I address to 
you the words ofHebr. 13, 7: "Remember 
them which have the rule over you, who have 
spoken unto you the word of God : whose faith 
follow, considering the end of their conversa- 
tion." 



— 181 — 

The hero now enjoys a peaceful rest, 
Through whom the Lord has great deliv' ranee wrought, 
From all the falsehoods which the pope had taught, 

And with the light of truth our souls has blest. 

But we must still abide the battle's test. 

The latter days approach with terror fraught, 
The roaring waves impel to serious thought. 

0, that we all might heed the Lord's behest, 
Error to shun, for His own truth contend, 
And, holding fast this treasure to the end, 

Confess it steadfastly to all around, 
Nor swerve one hair's breadth from the heavenly line. 
God ! fill us for this with srrace divine, 

That we among the faithful may be found. 






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